More Theoretical Complexity
When introns were first discovered, evolutionist figured they were yet more junk DNA. After all, why should genes have intervening regions which are simply removed from the gene copy? But introns are found throughout the genome. If they were junk why would they be so prevalent? Furthermore, how is it that spliceosomes can edit introns so precisely? If there were no introns then there would be no need for spliceosomes and so they would never evolve. And even if they did evolve there would be nothing for them to do and so evolution would discard them. On the other hand, if introns evolved first, then there would be no spliceosome to remove them. The resulting proteins would not function and the organism would quickly die. Either way, it is yet another conundrum for evolutionists.
In fact spliceosomes are incredibly complicated and perform sophisticated functions. The new research has found another function, and it presents yet another problem for evolution. The research discovered that the abundance of one of the key parts of the minor spliceosome can vary dramatically. Its abundance is controlled by a special protein and its abundance, in turn, controls whether the minor spliceosome is turned on or off. And this, in turn, controls whether or not a large number of very important genes are expressed.
Thus one single action has severe consequences for the cell. It is not a design that is gradually implemented. So not only are separate and independent structures and mechanisms simultaneously required for successful splicing, and not only are those structures and mechanisms incredibly complex, but the design space is highly nonlinear and discontinuous. This is yet another conundrum for evolution, the theory that calls for slow gradual change. Here is how one report described the findings:
The investigators found that a scarce, small RNA, called U6atac, controls the expression of hundreds of genes that have critical functions in cell growth, cell-cycle control, and global control of physiology. … These genes encode proteins that play essential roles in cell physiology such as several transcription regulators, ion channels, signaling proteins, and DNA damage-repair proteins. Their levels in cells are regulated by the activity of the splicing machinery, which acts as a valve to control essential regulators of cell growth and response to external stimuli. Dreyfuss, who studies RNA-binding proteins and their role in such diseases as spinal muscular atrophy and other motor neuron degenerative diseases, describes the findings as “completely unanticipated.”
The theory of evolution attempts to explain how the species arose. With the inexorable march of science, that explanation is becoming increasingly complex.
Here is a simplified animation of the spliceosome in action:
ReplyDeleteRNA Splicing by the Spliceosome - video
https://vimeo.com/70831358
Moreover, introns are turning out to be far more functionally important than the original junk DNA narrative that was told to us by Darwinists.
How 'Junk DNA' Can Control Cell Development - Aug. 2, 2013
Excerpt: Researchers from the Gene and Stem Cell Therapy Program at Sydney's Centenary Institute have confirmed that, far from being "junk," the 97 per cent of human DNA that does not encode instructions for making proteins can play a significant role in controlling cell development.,,
The researchers reached their conclusions through studying introns -- non-coding sequences which are located inside genes.,,
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130802101900.htm
In fact the alternative splicing code itself was deciphered by considering the 'junk' intron sequences as functional:
Breakthrough: Second Genetic Code Revealed - May 2010
Excerpt: The paper is a triumph of information science that sounds reminiscent of the days of the World War II codebreakers. Their methods included algebra, geometry, probability theory, vector calculus, information theory, code optimization, and other advanced methods. One thing they had no need of was evolutionary theory,,,
http://crev.info/content/breakthrough_second_genetic_code_revealed
Canadian Team Develops Alternative Splicing Code from Mouse Tissue Data
Excerpt: “Our method takes as an input a collection of exons and surrounding intron sequences and data profiling how those exons are spliced in different tissues,” Frey and his co-authors wrote. “The method assembles a code that can predict how a transcript will be spliced in different tissues.”
http://www.genomeweb.com/informatics/canadian-team-develops-alternative-splicing-code-mouse-tissue-data
Moreover alternative splicing codes turn out to be 'species specific' i.e. the codes turn out to be drastically different between what are suppose to be closely related species:
DeleteEvolution by Splicing - Comparing gene transcripts from different species reveals surprising splicing diversity. - Ruth Williams - December 20, 2012
Excerpt: A major question in vertebrate evolutionary biology is “how do physical and behavioral differences arise if we have a very similar set of genes to that of the mouse, chicken, or frog?”,,,
A commonly discussed mechanism was variable levels of gene expression, but both Blencowe and Chris Burge,,, found that gene expression is relatively conserved among species.
On the other hand, the papers show that most alternative splicing events differ widely between even closely related species. “The alternative splicing patterns are very different even between humans and chimpanzees,” said Blencowe.,,,
http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view%2FarticleNo%2F33782%2Ftitle%2FEvolution-by-Splicing%2F
What is particularly interesting in finding drastically different alternative splicing codes between closely related species is that drastically different alternative splicing codes between closely related species are far more difficult to explain the origination of than the ORFan genes are, (as extremely difficult as the ORFan genes are turning out to explain). The reason why drastically different splicing codes are more difficult to explain than ORFan genes is partially seen here:
Delete“Because of Shannon channel capacity that previous (first) codon alphabet had to be at least as complex as the current codon alphabet (DNA code), otherwise transferring the information from the simpler alphabet into the current alphabet would have been mathematically impossible”
Donald E. Johnson – Bioinformatics: The Information in Life
Shannon Information - Channel Capacity - Perry Marshall - video
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/5457552/
But Richard Dawkins himself gives us the most clear explanation as to why gradually changing only part of a code, and not implementing the entire code 'top down' all at once will be completely devastating for any gradual Darwinian scenario:
Venter vs. Dawkins on the Tree of Life - and Another Dawkins Whopper - March 2011
Excerpt:,,, But first, let's look at the reason Dawkins gives for why the code must be universal:
"The reason is interesting. Any mutation in the genetic code itself (as opposed to mutations in the genes that it encodes) would have an instantly catastrophic effect, not just in one place but throughout the whole organism. If any word in the 64-word dictionary changed its meaning, so that it came to specify a different amino acid, just about every protein in the body would instantaneously change, probably in many places along its length. Unlike an ordinary mutation...this would spell disaster." (2009, p. 409-10)
OK. Keep Dawkins' claim of universality in mind, along with his argument for why the code must be universal, and then go here (linked site listing 23 variants of the genetic code).
Simple counting question: does "one or two" equal 23? That's the number of known variant genetic codes compiled by the National Center for Biotechnology Information. By any measure, Dawkins is off by an order of magnitude, times a factor of two.
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/03/venter_vs_dawkins_on_the_tree_044681.html
The bottom line is that if any regulatory code, such as the genetic code, or the alternative splicing code, or the protein address code, or the acetylation code, or the metabolic code. or etc.. etc.. code, is ‘randomly changed’ in part, then it throws the entire code out of whack and will be ‘instantly catastrophic’, to use Richard Dawkins most appropriate term, thus rendering gradual change to a code impossible. The entire code must be implemented ‘top down’ when the species is created! There simply is no gradual pathway available to it.
DeleteMusic and verse:
Flyleaf - Fully Alive
http://www.vevo.com/watch/flyleaf/fully-alive/USOCT0600148
Psalm 139:14-15
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
I see since batspit77 got prohibited from posting his mindless spamfests at UD he's decided to continue his mental diarrhea here.
DeleteLucky us.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteThornton,
DeleteBA77 tends to post information that asks legitimate questions and points out real problems regarding the alledged capabilities of nde processes, mechanisms, alleged developmental powers , etc. to produce what is currently observable phenomena that requires verifications from an nde perspective. I do not believe I have ever seen you respond to these posts in any significant scientific fashion. You use ridicule to try and put down BA77 and the information he provides at this forum.
Your rhetoric is useless and only demostrates how bankrupt your position is. If nde had the explanatory power you claim it does, nobody would argue with you.
bpragmatic
DeleteBA77 tends to post information that asks legitimate questions and points out real problems
Er...no. Batspit 77 does nothing but make knee-jerk posts full of off topic material he didn't read and doesn't understand, usually accompanied by a YouTube video of some truly awful Christian music. There's a reason even his fellow IDiots at UD got tired of him and banished him to his own thread.
Thanks for the post BA77. Please keep it up.
Delete"resulting in an mRNA transcript, these major and minor introns are spliced out of the mRNA by the major and minor spliceosomes, respectively. The new research shows that the minor spliceosomes can be turned off, thus turning off the expression of that gene."
ReplyDeleteI'm not a biologist, but I'm a computer programmer. I'm GUESSING that the minor intron splicing occurs after some parameter is checked to see if it is OK to proceed. If not OK, then shut the process down. It doesn't qualify to be expressed further.
But then, I'm sure some well-funded neo-Darwinism evolutionist is already on top of researching into this possibility.
CH: When introns were first discovered, evolutionist figured they were yet more junk DNA. After all, why should genes have intervening regions which are simply removed from the gene copy? But introns are found throughout the genome. If they were junk why would they be so prevalent?
ReplyDeleteThis is why I find design proponents so confusing.
A abstract designer with no defined limitations doesn't need a reason to do anything. This includes causing sequences of genes to appear in DNA for an other reason because it just wanted to. After all, if dualism is true, in that there is any ratio of non-material aspects to beings, the ratio would be arbitrary.
Such as designer could have wanted beings to exist in a completely non-mateiral form merely because that's "just have been what the designer wanted"
Furthermore, human designers, which intelligent design is supposedly based on, "design" things that are described as form over function and simply ornamental.
IOW, the supposedly scientific theory presented by ID doesn't predict that DNA has a function because it's abstract designer has no limitations, including that DNA has to even exist, let alone be functional; anymore than it would need to predict that our brains must functionally encompass the entire of consciousness.
If a designer could cause non-material aspects of our "soul" to interact with our material brains, then such a being could have decided to skip brains all together and have our "soul" interact with our optical nerves, auditory nerves and spinal cord instead. Or at any other point it wanted. Brains could have been nothing more than an ornamental material structure that the designer finds pleasing for reasons we cannot understand.
Given that ID's abstract and unlimited designer is specifically designed to wedge a hole large enough in science for one to drive their preferred supernatural designer, it's unclear why they do not realize this also makes their specific claims about the functionality of DNA parochial.
If they take their own own theory seriously, why isn't this apparent to ID proponents?
Scott: A abstract designer with no defined limitations doesn't need a reason to do anything.
DeleteJ: Scott, you're confused. Part of teleological explanation IS positing the MOTIVES that would serve as necessary conditions for the action. We do this in court all the time. So you're arguing against a straw man. No one, in fact, does what you argue against. In theology, Designer nature is STRONGLY constrained by what must be true of the Designer to render induction VALID.
And again, people don't start off with no natural beliefs or preferences. They EXPLAIN how those natural beliefs/preferences could POSSIBLY correspond to an extra-solipsistic REALITY that they can't help BUT believe in.
DeleteHow can you infer anything about the motives of a designer if you steadfastly refuse to even speculate about its nature?
DeleteThere's also the old question of why a necessary being, which your designer must be to escape an infinite causal regress, would need to create anything at all, let alone this specific universe at that specific time?
Ian: How can you infer anything about the motives of a designer if you steadfastly refuse to even speculate about its nature?
DeleteJ: It's not an inference. It's a positing from WHICH we make an inference that accounts experience. This is how all hypothetico-deductive explanation works. We apply inductive criteria TO such explanations.
I: There's also the old question of why a necessary being, which your designer must be to escape an infinite causal regress, would need to create anything at all, let alone this specific universe at that specific time?
J: That's the point, Ian. That designer MUST have created freely TO account for the finality of explanation and, thus, the VALIDITY of inductive criteria!
In short, we POSIT the free choice as an axiom of the hypothetico-deductive explanation. And then we have to posit the relevant motives to account for the possibility of the choice AND the validity of induction. The constraints on what the Designer must be like are there, despite what Scott says. Scott claims to be free, and yet who doubts that he also has a nature that constrains his choices?
DeleteThe alternative, again, is Scott's RADICAL skepticism which he assumes doesn't exist because of his insane credulity by which he blows it all off.
DeleteScott doesn't know if he remembers. So he doesn't know if he ever completed a proposition in his mind. So he doesn't know if he ever recognized either a problem, a solution, an explanation, or ANYTHING else. But then he starts throwing around language about the ETHICS of science!!!! We're talking BONA-FIDE insanity here!
DeleteJeff,
DeleteWe do this in court all the time.
Unless God is human, that is irrelevant.
So you're arguing against a straw man.
No one, in fact, does what you argue against.
So you agree with Gould, one can know what a sensible god would do
In theology, Designer nature is STRONGLY constrained by what must be true of the Designer to render induction VALID.
The Designer is not constrained by definition, to assume constraint is unwarranted. One cannot know how or why or what an infinite being would do.
J: That's the point, Ian. That designer MUST have created freely TO account for the finality of explanation and, thus, the VALIDITY of inductive criteria
So God is contigent on your assumption of Him?
V: Unless God is human, that is irrelevant.
DeleteJ: No, it's not irrelevant. Inductive criteria apply to BOTH libertarian and non-libertarian causality. One can't limit hypotheses in the way you do, non-arbitrarily. One can only REJECT an hypotheses in favor of a competing hypothesis VIA the criteria. There's nothing more to how induction works than that.
V: So you agree with Gould, one can know what a sensible god would do
J: You're making a juvenile argument. No one can even know what a sensible HUMAN would do without knowing all the circumstances.
THere are exigencies in life that cause humans to choose actions that would seem utterly non-sensible in other circumstances. Thus, what is sensible is merely what is knowably "best" in the relevant sense. But this can mean choosing suffering in the short term to accomplish a greater LONG-term good.
Humans do this all the time. E.g., they willingly risk the lives of babies in war for utilitarian reasons. One could argue that this utilitarian reasoning only works if babies have post-mortem experience. But that's beside the point. There either IS valid utilitarian reasoning or NOT.
V: One cannot know how or why or what an infinite being would do.
J: The only conceivable sense in which a necessary being is infinite is in temporal existence. In that sense, lots of theology is sheer non-sense. But then so is your objection for the same reason.
V: So God is contigent on your assumption of Him?
J: God's existence must conceived of as non-contingent, as Ian explained. But insomuch as God is conceived of as libertarianly free to create (so that induction can be valid), He is conceived to act contingently in that sense.
Jeff: J: Scott, you're confused. Part of teleological explanation IS positing the MOTIVES that would serve as necessary conditions for the action.
DeleteSo, when applied to God, the modifier "sensible" does limit his actions? If the modifier "sensible" in particular isn't appropriate, then what modifier does limit his actions is this claim is based on?
jeff: In theology, Designer nature is STRONGLY constrained by what must be true of the Designer to render induction VALID.
Apparently, my comment when over your head. Why does the designer need induction to be valid? If he created everything out of nothing, including rendering induction itself valid, doesn't that imply that induction isn't necessary for reasoning, memories, logic etc., isn't necessary. Again, it seems that our needing a material world, let alone induction was optional. Otherwise, it is God omnipotent? If God supposedly isn't logically impossible and, by being omnipotent, God can do anything logically possible, then our dependance on induction for all the things you claim we need it for doesn't appear to be *necessary*.
Furthermore, do you know induction is valid since it doesn't actually provide guidance, in practice? After all, what you keep describing, in practice, is conjecture and criticism. Are you saying you think it's not conjecture and criticism because the designer renders it as valid induction? But wouldn't that just be another version of justificationism in that basic beliefs are justified by a supernatural authorize source?
Again, where do basic beliefs come from if not conjecture? Are they relevant to approximating the truth because they meet your criteria for being basic? But that still assumes that basic beliefs have some reason for being probability true or approximately true. Otherwise, you've just got conjecture and criticism.
I'm not seeing any material difference.
Jeff: And again, people don't start off with no natural beliefs or preferences. They EXPLAIN how those natural beliefs/preferences could POSSIBLY correspond to an extra-solipsistic REALITY that they can't help BUT believe in.
DeleteAgain, Popper's theory of knowledge unifies other theories of knowledge, including foundationalism, empiricism, etc. New knowledge often takes the form of unifying theories by providing better explanations for multiple theories, including phenomena that overlapped both theories or that neither theory explained on their own. That's how we make progress.
Solipsists accept all of the observations we do as a realist. This includes objects obeying the laws of physics, other people disagreeing with us about Solipsism, etc. As such all of these observations are compatible with Solipsism and one could just as well claim that those observations "prove" it is true, just as much as Realism. The key difference is that Solipsists add one more thing to Realism that does nothing at all but negate Realism itself, which is our best, current accepted explanation for all of those observations: they are just facets of our internal selves.
Solipsism doesn't explain why object like facets of my internal self would follow laws of physics-like facets of my internal self, or why other conscious being-like facets of my internal self would disagree with me on Solipsism. It one fell swoop, it negates all of these explanations while simultaneously explaining nothing itself.
IOW, Solipsism is a convoluted elaboration of Realism. As such, we reject it.
ID suffers from the very same problem, as it accepts all of the observations that Dariwnism does. But it adds one thing more that does nothing but negate our current, best explanation. Darwinsm only appears to be true, but an abstract designer with no limitations did it. ID doesn't explain opportunity and means, which includes the knowledge of how, motive, etc. In one fell swoop, it negates the underlying explanation of Darwinism while simultaneously explaining nothing itself.
You can recognize this in the case of Solipsism. However, in the case of evolutionary theory, you can't because you cannot recognize conception of human knowledge as an idea that is subject to criticism. Namely that knowledge in specific spheres comes from authoritative sources, rather than genuinely being created though an error correcting process.
Scott: IOW, the supposedly scientific theory presented by ID doesn't predict that DNA has a function because it's abstract designer has no limitations, including that DNA has to even exist, let alone be functional; anymore than it would need to predict that our brains must functionally encompass the entire of consciousness.
DeleteJeff: J: Scott, you're confused. Part of teleological explanation IS positing the MOTIVES that would serve as necessary conditions for the action. We do this in court all the time. So you're arguing against a straw man.
Can you point out where ID, the supposedly scientific theory, says anything about the designer making induction valid? AFAIK, induction is part of the philosophy of science, not part of a any scientific theory, let alone a theory about why organism exhibit different concrete adaptions.
Are you saying that the biosphere couldn't have beed designed by an ancient, yet highly advanced civilized race because it wouldn't have made induction valid?
And I'm confused?
If induction is invalid, it's all arbitrary folks. And then there's nothing to discuss, because in that case, not only do I have no warrant to infer your existence, but radical relativism of values can't be non-arbitrarily ruled out. And all epistemology requires VALUES. Where there is no value in voluntarily acting or thinking in a particular way, there is no REASON to voluntarily act or think in a particular way, either.
DeleteThus, if reason is the "right" way to epistemologically interact with others (assuming we are correctly inferring the existence of others in the first place), it presupposes a relevantly-motivating set of HUMAN values. And if science is inherently sectarian (which is what "science=unwarrantable conjecture" means), it is not a HUMAN way of knowing, because it's not based on a HUMAN set of motivating values.
Jeff,
DeleteNo, it's not irrelevant. Inductive criteria apply to BOTH libertarian and non-libertarian causality
You have no basis for induction on a categorically different being, as to motives or means or goals.
One can't limit hypotheses in the way you do, non-arbitrarily.
I am just not assuming,as you do, that a finite being can understand an infinite being. You are limiting the hypothesis,not I
One can only REJECT an hypotheses in favor of a competing hypothesis VIA the criteria. There's nothing more to how induction works than that.
What criteria is that?
V: You have no basis for induction on a categorically different being, as to motives or means or goals.
DeleteJ: Well, the designer has to be conceived in terms of human categories, for sure. But the designer can be, so that's irrelevant. The real issue is that the designer is not technically a ground, because humans don't "justify" induction prior to using it. They realize retrospectively (if they think about it at all; most don't) that induction can only BE valid if inductivism is TELEOLOGICAL inductivism. In that sense, the designer as a corollary of the validity of induction, not a ground. Because we couldn't cease to think inductively if we tried.
V: I am just not assuming,as you do, that a finite being can understand an infinite being. You are limiting the hypothesis,not I
J: If the principle of causality isn't valid, we don't that there IS an explanation for any event, much less BETTER ones. But if the principle is valid, there is necessarily an infinite regress of causes. There's no way around that. All teleology does is render those causes prior to the libertarian choice to create irrelevant to explanation OF events in the creation/world.
Finality of explanation (which is inevitable for humans) necessarily involves axioms. Inductive criteria rule out explanatory approaches that decrease explanatory breadth. When it comes to SA and naturalistic UCA, no one HAS explained either with explicit hypothetico-deductive hypotheses. That's why inductive criteria have no application to the question yet. And that's why it makes no sense to say there is evidence for one or the other TOTAL biological history.
V: What criteria is that?
J: When over-all explanatory breadth isn't diminished by a more parsimonious explanation of a subset of what is thus far explained (by which we actually mean predictable in most cases; Z has that much right), parsimony works. Otherwise, we fail back to over-all explanatory breadth.
Also, A coherent explanation that is valuable for human prediction is better than NO explanation that predicts thus. But positing ID-SA or naturalistic UCA for biological history doesn't imply or predict anything.
The only value of ID-SA is that it leaves as possibly true certain superficially analogical inferences--like eyes are FOR seeing, etc. Analogical inference is a species of inductive inference. Because it is an attempt to explain with greater explanatory breadth and/or parsimony. But that's a value that naturalistic UCA doesn't even have.
Jeff: Scott, you're confused. Part of teleological explanation IS positing the MOTIVES that would serve as necessary conditions for the action.
DeleteBut for there to be motives for anything, there would be necessary conditions that explain them. Otherwise, you've added something that serves no explanatory purpose, while simultaneously negating our current, best explanation.
God either made the world the way he did because "that's just because he must have wanted", in which case God creating the world explains nothing, or God had to make the world a certain for some reason X, in which case reason X explains why the world works the way it does, not God. Either way, the extra step that ID adds explains nothing, while negating all of our best, current explanations.
It's an example of a general purpose means of denying anything you find objectionable.
Scott: Solipsists accept all of the observations we do as a realist. This includes objects obeying the laws of physics, other people disagreeing with us about Solipsism, etc.
DeleteJ: This shows the depths of your confusion. A solipsist doesn't believe they "observe" any THING else. They only have subjective, conscious experience and infer no other beings. It's as though all experience is a dream. Of course, I don't believe there's such a thing as a consistent solipsist. It's just a conceivable world-view.
Scott: But for there to be motives for anything, there would be necessary conditions that explain them.
DeleteJ: Yes, like consciousness, but unless there's an infinite regress that's irrelevant.
Scott: Otherwise, you've added something that serves no explanatory purpose, while simultaneously negating our current, best explanation.
J: There is NO explanation of biological history that anyone has had the time or interest in synthesizing. If you had one, you would articulate it. You don't. No one does. Rather, biologists keep pointing out that naturalistic UCA has not been falsified. Of course not. It's neither falsifiable by naive falsificationism nor by inductive criteria. But neither is SA, ID-style or otherwise.
Well, the designer has to be conceived in terms of human categories, for sure. But the designer can be, so that's irrelevant
DeleteGranted it can be,but you require it Must be conceived in human terms. So your elimination of all other possibilities is relevant.
In that sense, the designer as a corollary of the validity of induction, not a ground. Because we couldn't cease to think inductively if we tried.
I thought you were using God as a premise for the validity of induction, in which case if it is both a corollary and a premise it is circular. I do agree humans use inductive reasoning, it is a useful tool .
Jeff: If induction is invalid, it's all arbitrary folks.
DeleteIs the belief that "If induction is invalid, it's all arbitrary folks." a basic belief?
If so, what is your criteria for whether a belief is basic or not? Wouldn't your acceptance of such a belief as basic be due to the it not having failed that criticism for being basic?
For example, don't you accept the belief that we have memories as basic because you have no criticism of it. IOW, it survived criticism for being basic?
Scott: Solipsists accept all of the observations we do as a realist. This includes objects obeying the laws of physics, other people disagreeing with us about Solipsism, etc. As such all of these observations are compatible with Solipsism and one could just as well claim that those observations "prove" it is true, just as much as Realism. The key difference is that Solipsists add one more thing to Realism that does nothing at all but negate Realism itself, which is our best, current accepted explanation for all of those observations: they are just facets of our internal selves.
DeleteJeff: This shows the depths of your confusion. A solipsist doesn't believe they "observe" any THING else. They only have subjective, conscious experience and infer no other beings. It's as though all experience is a dream.
That's been my point about subjective experience all along, Jeff. We do not derive theories from experience. Apparently, this went right over your head, yet again. Observations are themselves theory laden because they are experiences extrapolated though explanatory frameworks. Yet, inductivism the idea that we can derive theories from observations, as if they were "out there" somewhere for us to experience.
IOW, your claim that induction is valid doesn't add up with your objection based on different observations based on the same experience.
Specifically, the same experiences we Realists accept as based on an external reality are compatible with observing a multitude of things in both an external reality and facets of a singe internal self. This includes observations of object-like facets of their internal sell obeying laws of physics-like facets of their internal self, etc.
So, we have one theory, Solipsism, that can only be understood via a another theory that merely appears to be true, but is actually false, which is Realism. The entire theory of Solipsism consists of Realism + something that denies realism and explains nothing else.
Solipsism does not explain why object-like facets of my internal self would obey laws of physics-like facets of my internal self. Nor does it explain why physicist-like facets of my internal self can do the necessary math while I cannot. It just negates our current best, explanation for those observations: Realism.
As such, it's a convoluted elaboration of Realism, which we discard.
ID suffers from the same flaw. It accepts all of the experiences that Darwinism does, but adds one additional thing: a designer wanted it that way. Again, you have one theory, ID, that can only be understood though another theory, Darwinism, which merely appears to be true, but is actually false.
DeleteDue to defining it's designer as abstract and without defined limitations, the current crop of ID accepts the same observations as Darwinism + the addition of a claim that explains nothing and only serves to negates our current, best explanation for those same observations.
For example, both evolution and ID accepts the observation that the recurrent laryngeal nerve goes all the way down the giraffe's neck, around a large artery and back up to it's larynx. There is no explanation as to why a designer would "design" such a path other than appealing to the idea that "that's just what the designer must have wanted". Being being abstract and without defined limitations, a different path could have been "Designed" for each independent species. As such, appealing to a designer explains nothing about that concrete biological adoption. However, these same observation can be explained in that giraffes shared a common ancestor with fish, at which point it was the most direct route.
This video expands on this in significant detail.
"A designer just must have wanted it that way" not only does not explain this path, but it negates our current, best explanation, which is common ancestry through historical change that lacks foresight, etc. And, if we take ID seriously, then the designer wanted it to appear as if Darwinism was true, but was actually false, because it claims that path was "just what the designer must have wanted". No reason is given why the designer would design organism as if Dariwnim was true, but was false.
This is why I've asked, was the designer surprised by the fact that the way he just so happened to have wanted to design things just so appended to lead to the adoption of Darwinism? Was it blindsided by this outcome? Being abstract and without any defined limitations, it would be trivial to design organisms in such a way that didn't make Darwinism appear to be true.
Apparently, according to Cornelius, we cannot know what a "sensible" God would do, including to doing just that for some good reason we cannot understand.
But this is yet another example of a generic method of denying anything you find objectionable.
Scott: So, we have one theory, Solipsism, that can only be understood via a another theory that merely appears to be true, but is actually false, which is Realism.
DeleteJ: Another one of your confusions. What you're claiming there is only knowable if HUMAN foundationalism is true. Otherwise, you have no clue if what you said there is true.
IOW, Scott, phrases like "the merely appears to be true" has no meaning apart from foundationalism. No foundationalism, no "appearances."
DeleteScott: There is no explanation as to why a designer would "design" such a path other than appealing to the idea that "that's just what the designer must have wanted".
DeleteJ: There's no explanation for it all, Scott.
Scott: Being being abstract and without defined limitations, a different path could have been "Designed" for each independent species.
J: There is no specificity of knowledge of mutational effects that implies a giraffe would exist as an effect of mutations, much less with a recurrent laryngeal nerve.
I applaud Scott for persistently trying to make sense of Jeff's incoherent blitherings.
DeleteYou have a strong stomach, Scott.
J: Well, the designer has to be conceived in terms of human categories, for sure. But the designer can be, so that's irrelevant
DeleteV: Granted it can be,but you require it Must be conceived in human terms. So your elimination of all other possibilities is relevant.
J: Give me an example of what you're calling a counter-categorical notion other than the claim that an event can be uncaused that you think is fair game in hypothetico-deductive explanation.
Z: I thought you were using God as a premise for the validity of induction,
J: The relevant kind of teleology does constitute a necessary condition of the validity of induction. But since voluntary explanation is itself teleological activity, the applied inductive criteria include human satisfaction, rendering teleology a corollary of the validity/warrantedness of inductive thought.
Take the correlativity of husband and wife. We can't define one independently of the other. But in a sense, you could say the existence of one GROUNDS the possibility of the other.
J1: Take the correlativity of husband and wife. We can't define one independently of the other. But in a sense, you could say the existence of one GROUNDS the possibility of the other.
DeleteJ2: More specifically, the being that becomes a husband to the other being GROUNDS the possibility of both becoming a specific kind of being that is defined correlatively with the other.
The point is, Scott is right to say that induction has no validity as a set of criteria if teleology is false. But he's wrong to say that he has anything to offer. Heck, he doesn't even claim to have ACTUAL memories! I wonder if they would allow him on a jury given that degree of skepticism about what has happened in the past.
Scott: Observations are themselves theory laden because they are experiences extrapolated though explanatory frameworks. Yet, inductivism the idea that we can derive theories from observations, as if they were "out there" somewhere for us to experience.
DeleteJ: The conscious self doesn't have the ability to believe that it is the only existing thing, because we distinguish naturally between libertarian and natural causality. This means that only the libertarian cause is the self. All other causes are non-self causes. This is why no one can consistently be a solipsist. Because no one can consistently believe they aren't free.
So once you have to posit other entities as causes of non-voluntarily conscious states, it turns out that positing 3-D extension of finitely-sized entities is the most parsimonious way to explain the way our 2-D vision correlates with the spatial elements of other non-vision senses. As our over-simplified views of such 3-D-extended entities is found to be problematic, we posit the existence of solid "appearing" composites.
In short, it is inductive criteria by WHICH we infer stuff "out there." There is no getting around induction, Scott. Deduction using inductive criteria is the only VOLUNTARY and RATIONAL way of generating beliefs. All other beliefs are intuitions (naturally-caused beliefs) of one sort or another.
Scott: But for there to be motives for anything, there would be necessary conditions that explain them.
DeleteJeff: Yes, like consciousness, but unless there's an infinite regress that's irrelevant.
Consciousness is necessary to conceive of problems. But that doesn't mean that we won't fail to create knowledge that actually solves problems we've conceived of or that we might end up solving some other problem we didn't intend to solve due to unintended consequences.
People are universal explainers. So, the ability to conceive of explanations is necessary for explanatory knowledge. But that's not the case in regards to non-explanatory knowledge.
Furthermore, it's unclear why ID's designer would have problems to conceive of since it's abstract and has no defined limitations.
On the other hand, human beings are motivated to purchase and store food because food is a necessary condition for human beings. We need to convert food into energy or we stop functioning. Our bodies give us signals that we need to perform this process, which motivates us. However, ID's designer doesn't need anything or have any defined limitations, such as not being able to function without converting food into energy. You should be very well acquainted with this concept because it's what wedges a hole large enough to drive your preferred supernatural designer. Apparently, you do not take your own theory very seriously.
I'd also note this is yet another example of failing to create knowledge due to unintended consequences of a conjectured solution. The very same thing that lets you drive God through this hole prevents it from explaining anything. That's an unexpected consequence which is similar to William Paley's attempt to solve a problem of biological complexity with a designer, as it too would be well adapted at designing organisms, and therefore need a designer, etc. One cannot always anticipate what their theory actually implies due to the possibility of unexpected consequences.
Scott: Otherwise, you've added something that serves no explanatory purpose, while simultaneously negating our current, best explanation.
Jeff: There is NO explanation of biological history that anyone has had the time or interest in synthesizing. If you had one, you would articulate it. You don't. No one does. Rather, biologists keep pointing out that naturalistic UCA has not been falsified. Of course not. It's neither falsifiable by naive falsificationism nor by inductive criteria. But neither is SA, ID-style or otherwise.
First, not having an exhaustive, reductionist explanation doesn't mean we haven't make any progress. Nor have you explicitly indicated which particular philosophy of science that requires exhaustive, reductionists explanations. Furthermore, I've given concrete examples of non-reductionist explanations that we use, in practice. So, this appears to be nothing more than handwaving.
Second, we all know the only two options available are naive falsificationism and induction?
Scott: People are universal explainers.
DeleteJ: Really? And how do you know this since you don't even know whether you have memory? And since you don't even believe we know that the law of non-contradiction is true? And so on and so on. When you apply probability to all the conceivable histories that are equally a-probable to you, the probability that any one of them is knowably probable/true/better/etc is ZERO. Everytime you make an indicative assertion as if you're mind-bogglingly coincidentally stating some truth I should regard, it's tempting to picture you with a big funny hat like that the pope wears.
Scott: First, not having an exhaustive, reductionist explanation doesn't mean we haven't make any progress.
J: There is no non-reductionist explanation of naturalistic UCA, Scott. There is NO explanation of it.
Scott: Furthermore, I've given concrete examples of non-reductionist explanations that we use, in practice. So, this appears to be nothing more than handwaving.
J: Articulate the non-reductionist explanation of a naturalistic UCA history of earth's flora and fauna that you erroneously believe exists. Then tell me how you "use" it to solve any problem whatsoever. Scott, even non-reductionist explanations have the form of implying subsequent events from premises that relevantly capture a state of affairs (including causal capacity of relevant entities) of relevant initial conditions. You're utterly confused.
Scott: The very same thing that lets you drive God through this hole prevents it from explaining anything.
DeleteJ: You're confused still. The relevant kind of Designer renders the validity of inductive criteria intelligible. Without such validity, I have no reason to believe you exist. For you have yet to enlighten me on the criteria that people ACTUALLY use as opposed to what logic books claim in the induction chapters.
But once one limits oneself to the data set used by professional researchers, there is no inductive criteria that has any known relevance to adjudicating between naturalistic UCA and ID-SA. Because neither is falsifiable by naive falsificationism, rejectable by inductive criteria, nor explicable by any set of hypotheses (the number of hypotheses would be TOO large to be articulated).
And that's why there is no "best" explanation or AN explanation of earth's biological history once you limit the data set for inductive criteria as natural scientists do.
CH is saying that utterly speculative claims about the potency of mutations over earth-historical time-frames is not even CONCEIVABLY less arbitrary than positing libertarianly-causal entities with the relevant capacities. He's not saying that science can "discover" a designer. Science, to the extent that it assumes the validity of induction, ASSUMES a designer until they can account for the VALIDITY of induction non-teleologically. And you, for one, admit that they can't.
One thing is for sure: you of all people have no basis to criticize any one else's criteria. For you deny that any belief is more knowably probably true than any other (including whether you've ever had an ACTUAL memory!). That's all it takes to render the claim that you know you're making progress obviously false.
Scott: Being being abstract and without defined limitations, a different path could have been "Designed" for each independent species.
DeleteJeff: There is no specificity of knowledge of mutational effects that implies a giraffe would exist as an effect of mutations, much less with a recurrent laryngeal nerve.
There is no experience any effects that positively implies anything, Jeff, let alone that a giraffe would exist as an effect of mutations. That's because explanatory frameworks are not "out there" for us to experience. We always get out more than we put in. So you're objections are merely handwaving.
But, by all means, feel free to formulate a "principle of induction" that actually works, in practice. Please be specific.
Again, it seems you're making some assumption about something that grounds basic beliefs in some way without explicitly disclosing it, such as we have the specific basic beliefs we do because, "that's just what the designer must have wanted" otherwise, it's unclear how they are relevant to knowing they are true, probably true or approximate to the truth, etc.
V: Granted it can be,but you require it Must be conceived in human terms. So your elimination of all other possibilities is relevant.
DeleteJ: Give me an example of what you're calling a counter-categorical notion other than the claim that an event can be uncaused that you think is fair game in hypothetico-deductive explanation.
Clarify please. Are you asking me, can one assume a god not explainable in human terms?
J: The relevant kind of teleology does constitute a necessary condition of the validity of induction
Assuming nature is comprehensible requires less assumptions results in the same effect.
But since voluntary explanation is itself teleological activity, the applied inductive criteria include human satisfaction, rendering teleology a corollary of the validity/warrantedness of inductive thought.
Which makes it circular, you need a certain god to make induction valid, and you prove that god exists thru induction.
Jeff: The conscious self doesn't have the ability to believe that it is the only existing thing, because we distinguish naturally between libertarian and natural causality. This means that only the libertarian cause is the self. All other causes are non-self causes. This is why no one can consistently be a solipsist. Because no one can consistently believe they aren't free.
DeleteAnd I'm clueless?
Again, Solipsism is a theory that can only be understood in the terms of another theory, realism, which it merely deems false. It doesn't add to the explanation.
Specifically, adding to the explanation would include explaining why other conscious being-like facets of my internal self would disagree with me about Solipsism. Had Solipsism presented a better explanation for those same observations, rather than merely negating the existing explanation that they are other conscious external beings like myself, you would accept them instead. That's because we adopt beliefs that have withstood the most criticism *at that point*. So you still haven't differentiated your position from conjectures controlled by criticism.
Again, what is your criteria for a natural / basic belief? Is there some reason why you keep avoiding this question?
I cannot choose to believe that Paris, France doesn't exist, even though I haven't been there. I except it because it's existence has withstood significant criticism. However, this doesn't mean that some better expiation for those observations couldn't be presented in the future, in which point I'd have no choice to belief that it didn't exist. So you're conflating natural behavior of people to conjecture beliefs and accept those that have withstood the most criticism, the resulting conjectures having the status of being being basic or natural.
Once conjectured, it's subject to criticism. But that's what your denying.
IOW, you seem to be implying that basic beliefs are relevant, but that we cannot make progress regarding where basic beliefs come from, a criteria for accepting them as basic, etc. Apparently, they are "magic".
Scott: So, we have one theory, Solipsism, that can only be understood via a another theory that merely appears to be true, but is actually false, which is Realism.
DeleteJeff: Another one of your confusions. What you're claiming there is only knowable if HUMAN foundationalism is true. Otherwise, you have no clue if what you said there is true.
Yes, Jeff, I'm confused. But this is because I keep asking if or how you know that basic beliefs are true or probability true, what your criteria is for a belief being basic, etc. and, at most, you say that you do not know that basic beliefs are true and that it's irrelevant where basic beliefs come from. IOW, I'm confused as to how beliefs are relevant to you knowing that you have memories, while I supposedly do not.
It's as if you've merely decided to define "knowable" as something that is a basic belief or grounded in a basic belief. As such, you "know" you have at least some memories, while I deny "knowing" I have any. But that's just a matter of terminology, not an argument. It's just disingenuous word play.
Is there a particular reason you keep avoiding this criticism, yet keep making the same claims as I've never presented it?
what you keep describing, in practice, is conjecture and criticism. Are you saying you think it's not conjecture and criticism because the designer renders it as valid induction? But wouldn't that just be another version of justificationism in that basic beliefs are justified by a supernatural authoritative source?
... where do basic beliefs come from if not conjecture? Are they relevant to approximating the truth because they meet your criteria for being basic? But that still assumes that basic beliefs have some reason for being probability true or approximately true. Otherwise, you've just got conjecture and criticism.
I'm not seeing any material difference.
IOW, you keep describing an experience that is compatible with conjecture and criticism.
Jeff: And that's why there is no "best" explanation or AN explanation of earth's biological history once you limit the data set for inductive criteria as natural scientists do.
DeleteExcept, I've been asking exactly how scientist actually use inductive logic, in practice, because we always get more out than we put in.
Induction doesn't provide guidance and all you've done is decide to call conjecture and criticism an "inductive criteria" as a means to defend inductivism.
Apparently, a belief that we must use induction, or we have no other choice, results in this sort of behavior, despite what appears to be common sense objections to the idea once exposed to them. However, it only appears to be common sense in hindsight; just like all other supposedly inductive conclusions.
Scott, you're view doesn't even rise to radical relativism. Once it's impossible to know whether we remember, the claim that there is another human is just a bald pontification (I see that funny hat just thinking about it).
DeleteScott: IOW, you seem to be implying that basic beliefs are relevant, but that we cannot make progress regarding where basic beliefs come from, a criteria for accepting them as basic, etc. Apparently, they are "magic".
DeleteJ: Well, if you insist that the only way we can make progress is by insisting that explanation has no finality, you're just confused. Because the absence of finality to explanation automatically rules out the validity of inductive criteria. So what other criteria are you applying to hypotheses? Give me some examples so I'll have a clue what you're talking about.
Scott: But this is because I keep asking if or how you know that basic beliefs are true or probability true, what your criteria is for a belief being basic, etc. and, at most, you say that you do not know that basic beliefs are true and that it's irrelevant where basic beliefs come from. IOW, I'm confused as to how beliefs are relevant to you knowing that you have memories, while I supposedly do not.
DeleteJ: By your view, knowledge isn't a sub-category of beliefs. Per you, it includes non-beliefs, because it exists in states void of consciousness per you. See the difference?
I don't think anyone cares about what knowledge is if it has nothing to do PER SE with conscious beings. What most people are interested in (if they're interested at all) is WHICH sub-class of beliefs are what we mean, when we talk with conventional language, when we refer to KNOWLEDGE.
Taken this way, there is no theory of knowledge that can't distinguish beliefs thus. I note that without the principle of causality, we are left with absolute skepticism with regard to explanation since there is no conceivable criteria that could tell one whether an event is caused or not.
With that intuition (yes, intuition, since why else do very young children ask "why" and "what for" incessantly?) in place as necessary to EXPLANATORY knowledge, belief instantiation must be caused. But I only have 2 categories of causality in my epistemological quiver: libertarian causality and non-libertarian (what we call natural) causality.
Since I have beliefs that I have no consciousness of forming volitionally, they seem to not BE formed volitionally. Because volitional action is some of the most aware and memorable mental action we perform.
In one sense of the word, we can say all naturally-formed beliefs are intuitions (this would include apparent memories). But not all of them survive criticism via inductive criteria. Furthermore, some, like causality, the law of non-contradiction, etc, are indispensable to inductive thought. These are axiomatic to inductive thought itself. For without those intuitions, induction isn't even conceivable.
And that's where your problem lies. You think you can know that you voluntarily criticize without knowing axiomatically that volition (i.e., libertarian causality) even exists. Your whole approach is a-probable guess piled on another. Progress is inconceivable this way since any other "pile" must, by your approach, be conceived of as equally a-probable as any other.
There is literally no point in debating with such an approach since there is nothing by which I can convince another thereby. Consensus is, by that view, not only not known to exist (since NOTHING is), but utterly coincidental if it does exist.
In short, my approach provides a way to DISTINGUISH between mere belief, warranted false belief, true unwarranted belief, and true warranted belief. Your epistemology provides no way to distinguish between ANY of those sub-classes of beliefs. It is utterly bankrupt.
Jeff:"But then he starts throwing around language about the ETHICS of science!!!! We're talking BONA-FIDE insanity here!"
DeleteIt sounds like he is almost denying his existence. But he can't because he is busy denying absolutes exist.
Jeff: The conscious self doesn't have the ability to believe that it is the only existing thing, because we distinguish naturally between libertarian and natural causality. This means that only the libertarian cause is the self. All other causes are non-self causes. This is why no one can consistently be a solipsist. Because no one can consistently believe they aren't free.
DeleteScott: And I'm clueless?
Again, Solipsism is a theory that can only be understood in the terms of another theory, realism, which it merely deems false.
J: That's true, since solipsism is a radical violation of inductive criteria, which are the only relative plausibility criteria we have relevant to the question. But how does that contradict what I said?
Scott: It doesn't add to the explanation.
J: It doesn't have to add OR subtract to an explanation if inductive criteria have no validity. It only need be consistent (to involve deduction). But it can't be for the reason I explained. You're utterly confused.
Scott: It's as if you've merely decided to define "knowable" as something that is a basic belief or grounded in a basic belief. As such, you "know" you have at least some memories, while I deny "knowing" I have any. But that's just a matter of terminology, not an argument. It's just disingenuous word play.
J: As I've said before, Scott, professional researchers don't publicly claim to hold your epistemology. So I assume that they mean by "knowledge" what most people mean by it most of the time. You have yet to show POSITIVE evidence that professional researchers hold your epistemology. But of course you can't since you don't believe POSITIVE evidence exists. And that's why my views, by your view, are exactly as a-probable as yours. You are ONE confused puppy.
Scott: I cannot choose to believe that Paris, France doesn't exist, even though I haven't been there.
J: You can't even choose to believe you have the capacity to choose unless contradictory propositions can both be true. You're just really confused.
Scott: There is no experience any effects that positively implies anything, Jeff, let alone that a giraffe would exist as an effect of mutations.
J: I didn't say there was. I said there are no premises of the kind relevant to naturalistic explanation that explains how a naturalistic UCA history is even possible.
Scott: That's because explanatory frameworks are not "out there" for us to experience.
J: No, clueless wonder, that's because experience of effects per se doesn't even "mean" that we know ANYTHING relevant to explanation. If I have no memory, I have no clue as to whether there have even been any past events TO explain. You are confused beyond belief.
Scott, I'm still waiting for your examples of non-inductive criteria that the consensi use. And I'm also interested in your putative "explanation" of a naturalistic UCA history and how you "use" it.
DeleteHad a busy evening. Have a busy day planed.
DeleteOne point: you keep assuming I'm a skeptic. But I'm not. I'm suggesting that Foundationalism doesn't actually solve the the problem of infinite regress. The solution isn't to adopt skepticism, as you claim I'm suggesting, but to discard justificationism.
I've provided references when you asked for them, yet you continue to ask questions that suggest you haven't actually read them.
IOW, it's unclear why someone who makes philosophical arguments doesn't appear well versed or interested in philosophy and, in general, acts as if the field of epistemology doesn't exist.
For example, what problem is Foundationalism supposed to solve? If it is supposed to be a solution to the problem of infinite regress, are you suggesting that it actually solves that problem?
Jeff: So what other criteria are you applying to hypotheses? Give me some examples so I'll have a clue what you're talking about.
DeleteI don't need to give you examples, because you keep providing them for me. In none of your examples do you actually obtain guidance from induction. Rather, what you keep describing is conjecture and criticism. You've just chosen to call it inductive reasoning as a way to defend it.
Scott: I've provided references when you asked for them, yet you continue to ask questions that suggest you haven't actually read them.
DeleteJ: On the contrary. I've showed how nothing those references say can have any relevance to anything once they admit that there is NO belief/idea/theory/proposition/etc that is any more or less probably true than any other. Once you say that, Scott, everything else you say is literally pointless.
Scott; For example, what problem is Foundationalism supposed to solve?
J: It doesn't solve anything. It explains why we distinguish between mere belief, warranted belief, warranted false belief, etc, the way we do. You can't even account for distinctions humans routinely make. You have to claim that humans are all nut case schizophrenics to even be coherent.
Scott: IOW, it's unclear why someone who makes philosophical arguments doesn't appear well versed or interested in philosophy and, in general, acts as if the field of epistemology doesn't exist.
J: Right, because no one in epistemology holds to foundationalism. What planet are you from?!
Scott: In none of your examples do you actually obtain guidance from induction.
J: Inductive criteria are used by people because they produce the greatest long-term satisfaction for them. But it requires memory to know that. And it requires induction to distinguish between actual and merely apparent memories. It's all about whether any of our distinctions correspond to a non-solipsistic reality, Scott. If they don't, there's nothing to debate about since I couldn't even know there's another person to debate with.
Parsimony in explanation is sought because people act parsimoniously unto their chosen ends (with prioritization, of course). So if I have no idea whether I'm ever attaining an end (i.e., because I have no idea if I ever remember), there is no way to make sense of conjecture and criticism VIA criteria. Because I can't know THAT any criticism or conjecture has ever occurred. And you go even further. You insist that the following propositions are equally a-probable (and these are just some of the conceivable options):
1) Conjecture has occurred, but criticism hasn't.
2) Conjecture hasn't occurred.
3) Conjecture has never been conceived of by Scott.
4) Criticism has never been conceived of by Scott.
5) Scott is a figment of my imagination.
Now, do you see why so many scientists abhor philosophy once that non-sense is claimed to be the new kid on the block? Communication isn't even possible believing such non-sense. The reason why we do in fact communicate is because we all have the same or virtually the same foundational/natural beliefs that cause us to infer similarly.
Scott: The solution isn't to adopt skepticism, as you claim I'm suggesting, but to discard justificationism.
J: What I just described above is skepticism. The fact that you can not live that way is irrelevant. That's evidence itself for foundationalism. For if there were no foundational beliefs common to humans, all communication (assuming any occurs) would be absolutely serendipitous. You're bona-fide, Scott.
Scott: Rather, what you keep describing is conjecture and criticism. You've just chosen to call it inductive reasoning as a way to defend it.
DeleteJ: No, I'm talking about what is described in INDUCTION chapters in logic books. They do NOT say that all inferences are equally a-probable as you do. Read for yourself, for crying out loud.
Jeff: Scott, you're view doesn't even rise to radical relativism. Once it's impossible to know whether we remember, the claim that there is another human is just a bald pontification (I see that funny hat just thinking about it).
DeleteStill not following you, as you seem to merely using the word "know" to mean "have a basic belief" about something. At best, this is merely a issue of terminology or, at worst, disingenuous equivocation.
Scott: IOW, you seem to be implying that basic beliefs are relevant, but that we cannot make progress regarding where basic beliefs come from, a criteria for accepting them as basic, etc. Apparently, they are "magic".
Jeff: Well, if you insist that the only way we can make progress is by insisting that explanation has no finality, you're just confused.
What feature or property does a basic belief posses that makes it it true or likely to be true? If basic beliefs have no such feature it's unclear how they can be used to justify or "ground" other non-basic beliefs. At which point you need to resume the search for ways to justify that belief, etc. This is just one of many well known criticisms of Foundationalism.
Jeff: Because the absence of finality to explanation automatically rules out the validity of inductive criteria.
Can you spell that out for me? It's unclear what "the absence of finality" has to do with the "validity of inductive criteria." You seem to be inventing a solution to a problem that doesn't exist, as induction doesn't actually provided guidance.
Jeff: So what other criteria are you applying to hypotheses? Give me some examples so I'll have a clue what you're talking about.
Conjectured theories represent explanations about how the world works, in reality. As such, criticisms are specifically tailored to find errors in at least one of those theories. We do this by taking a theory seriously as if it was true, in reality, along with the rest of our current, best theories were true in reality, as well, and that all observations should conform to them. The very idea that theories can conflict with each other and with empirical observations is how we make progress towards truth.
As for examples, you keep providing examples for me. What you keep describing is conjecture and criticism. You've just chosen to call it inductive reasoning as a way to defend it.
Scott: IOW, I'm confused as to how beliefs are relevant to you knowing that you have memories, while I supposedly do not.
Jeff: By your view, knowledge isn't a sub-category of beliefs. Per you, it includes non-beliefs, because it exists in states void of consciousness per you. See the difference?
No, Jeff, I don't see the difference. Apparently, your still confused.
If you believed you received the plans to build a car, but actually received the plans to build a truck by mistake, does that necessitate you ending up with a car instead? No, it doesn't. Knowledge is objective, which means it's independent of anyone's belief. However, this doesn't mean that I deny that I have actual memories. Again, these are all elemental mistakes that could be prevented had you actually read the references I provided.
IOW, you seem to be quibbling about terminology in an attempt to portray me as a radical skeptic. But, I'm not the own who is claiming we cannot make any progress.
Jeff: I don't think anyone cares about what knowledge is if it has nothing to do PER SE with conscious beings.
DeleteFirst, I didn't say knowledge had *nothing* to do with conscious beings. Where do you come up with this stuff? Second, see Popper's book Objective Knowledge, which provides a though experiment that illustrates this. From this summary of the book…
To demonstrate the existence and significance of objective knowledge, Popper considers two thought experiments. Firstly, he asks us to imagine that "all our machines and tools are destroyed and all our subjective learning, including our subjective knowledge of machines and tools, and how to use them. But libraries and our capacity to learn from them survive. Clearly, after much suffering, our world may get going again." Secondly, he asks us to imagine the same situation, except that "this time, all our libraries are destroyed also, so that our capacity to learn from books becomes useless." It can be seen that the existence of information in books makes a crucial difference. This is a clever and beautifully simple argument on the distinction between subjective and objective knowledge, and the singular importance of the latter.
Would this first group not care that, due to knowledge being objective, they could rebuild? Do we not care that bacteria create the knowledge of how to become resistant to antibiotics? I sure do. Doctors do, when they only prescribe antibiotics when absolutely necessary, etc.
Furthermore, we do care about the creation of knowledge independent of conciseness because what we care about its content, not its source or providence. We care about solutions to problems that end up getting solved due to unintended consequences. We care about how knowledge grows because we want to solve problems. However, if you assume that knowledge in specific spheres comes from authoritative sources, then it would come as no surprise that you're not interested in knowledge created independent of authoritative, conscious beings.
Jeff: Taken this way, there is no theory of knowledge that can't distinguish beliefs thus.
DeleteBy "taking it that way", apparently you haven't bothered reading the references I provided.
Jeff: In one sense of the word, we can say all naturally-formed beliefs are intuitions (this would include apparent memories). But not all of them survive criticism via inductive criteria.
Again, what property or features do intuitions posses makes them true or likely to be true? Given that some do not survive criticism, It's unclear how this is not an example of conjecture and criticism.
Jeff: Furthermore, some, like causality, the law of non-contradiction, etc, are indispensable to inductive thought. These are axiomatic to inductive thought itself. For without those intuitions, induction isn't even conceivable.
The idea of causality, and the law of non-contradiction are implicated in a great number of explanations. We cannot easily vary these ideas without significantly reducing their ability to explain the phenomena in question. They are good explanations because they are hard to very explanations about how the world works.
2+2=4 is an extremely hard to very explanation about sets of objects. Imagine a scenario with a box that already contained two objects, someone added two more objects, closed the lid and opened it again, you'd expect to find four objects. However, if you actually experienced finding three objects, this does not conform with our theories about how the world works, in reality. An error exists somewhere as this result indicates at least one of our ideas about the situation is wrong: 2+2=4 or that the box is an accurate model of arithmetic. We would suspect the latter because the explanation that 2+2=4 is impossible to vary, except in exceptionally rare instances of integers. On the other hand we can think of many ways that the box might not accurately model arithmetic, such as having a false bottom, some kind of projection that made it appear that there were two items in the box when there was actually only one, etc. The idea that we question last is the one that is the most difficult to vary. However, this doesn't mean they are not ideas.
Furthermore, it's unclear how one could solve a problem using a solution that is both a solution to a problem and a non-solution simultaneously. Ideas that conflict with themselves aren't much good. Nor are Ideas that conflict with observations or do not actually solve the target problem. This is why I keep pointing out that we start out with a problem, which you keep ignoring.
Jeff: And that's where your problem lies. You think you can know that you voluntarily criticize without knowing axiomatically that volition (i.e., libertarian causality) even exists.
DeleteThe Tu Quoque fallacy again? Really? And, we all know that everyone is an incompatibleist?
The set of axioms you consider givens or immediately intuited simply isn't capable of providing a foundation of the sort of belief about the world that most people actually hold. This includes someone as simple as a ball being red to the structure of an atom.
Furthermore, if we accept the idea that some beliefs are basic, in that they require no external justification to be justified, then it would seem that someone could seek to defend *any* idea by merely claiming that belief is basic. And since all non-basic beliefs in foundationalism are justified by basic beliefs, then any world-view carefully inferred from them would appear to be justified. While this avoids the problem of infinite regress, it doesn't actually solve the problem. Rather, it's an ad-hoc modification that merely muddies the waters.
Nor can you avoid this by offering reasons to prefer one belief as being basic compared to another. This is because the whole point of basic beliefs is that they are intrinsically justified. The idea that some intuitions are only accepted as basic if they survive criticism indicates you do not really think they are basic. Rather, it's comparable with conjecture and criticism.
So, it's unclear why any choice of basic beliefs would be entirely arbitrary. And, therefore, all beliefs that are derived from them would be arbitrary as well.
Jeff: There is literally no point in debating with such an approach since there is nothing by which I can convince another thereby.
This denies that we, as people, can devise criticisms that at least one of many conjectured beliefs would fail. And i'm a skepticist?
Apparently, you're just not very creative. Or perhaps you think God decided not make us creative enough?
Jeff: J: As I've said before, Scott, professional researchers don't publicly claim to hold your epistemology. So I assume that they mean by "knowledge" what most people mean by it most of the time. You have yet to show POSITIVE evidence that professional researchers hold your epistemology.
Apparently, this still keeps going over your head. Their *experience* is compatible with conjecture and criticism. Modus Ponens arguments can be reformulated as Modus Tollens, in which case it no longer begs the question. That's because conceptions of human knowledge are ideas that are subject to criticism. Apparently, you can't recognize this is the case.
Jeff: And that's why my views, by your view, are exactly as a-probable as yours. You are ONE confused puppy.
Without an expansion as to where the numbers come from, probability isn't valid in selecting theories. But, by all means. Feel free to explain how probability is valid in adopting theories. Please be specific. Until then, it seems that your the one who is confused, not me.
Scott: Again, Solipsism is a theory that can only be understood in the terms of another theory, realism, which it merely deems false.
DeleteJeff: That's true, since solipsism is a radical violation of inductive criteria, which are the only relative plausibility criteria we have relevant to the question. But how does that contradict what I said?
It doesn't rely on Inductivism, Jeff. You're confusing a more general tradition of criticism with a specific criteria that doesn't work. But by all means, feel free to present a "principle of induction" that actually works in practice.
Again, Solipsism merely negates the existing theory, while actually explaining nothing in the process. it's a convoluted elaboration of Realism. So, we discard it. It's really that simple.
Jeff: If I have no memory, I have no clue as to whether there have even been any past events TO explain. You are confused beyond belief.
Gee Jeff. You keep saying you don't know if basic beliefs are true, so, apparently, you don't know either. And I'm utterly confused? Again, this is just more word play.
Jeff: On the contrary. I've showed how nothing those references say can have any relevance to anything once they admit that there is NO belief/idea/theory/proposition/etc that is any more or less probably true than any other. Once you say that, Scott, everything else you say is literally pointless.
Let me fix that for you Jeff.
On the contrary. I've showed how, under inductivism, nothing those references say can have any relevance to anything once they admit that there is NO belief/idea/theory/proposition/etc that is any more or less probably true than any other. Once you say that, Scott, everything else you say is literally pointless, under inductivism.
Also, you have yet to explain how it's even possible to calculate the probably of whether a theory itself is true.
Scott; For example, what problem is Foundationalism supposed to solve?
Jeff: It doesn't solve anything.
Then exactly why do you expect anyone to care about it?
Scott: IOW, it's unclear why someone who makes philosophical arguments doesn't appear well versed or interested in philosophy and, in general, acts as if the field of epistemology doesn't exist.
Jeff: Right, because no one in epistemology holds to foundationalism. What planet are you from?!
Everyone holds foundationalism? There are no significant criticisms of foundationalism that have't been refuted? What knowledge *is* isn't an idea that is subject to criticism, which is what the field of epistemology is all about? Your continued missreprestation of Popper's position?
Jeff: Inductive criteria are used by people because they produce the greatest long-term satisfaction for them.
For anything to mean anything in the long term, you need an explanatory framework. I don't know why this is so difficult for you to grasp. Apparently, you think what everyone considers long term satisfaction is obvious and therefore basic belief. See above.
Jeff: What I just described above is skepticism.
Except, I'm not the one claiming we cannot make progress. That your position, remember? I'm suggesting we can make progress despite the failure of justicationism, induction, etc.
Jeff: It doesn't solve anything.
DeleteScott: Then exactly why do you expect anyone to care about it?
J: Because explanation is inconceivable apart from naturally-formed notions that we use in our theories, etc.
What people couldn't care less about is claims that are a-probable, untestable, etc. And your view can't account for the conception of testability of any kind since you don't think it probable that you REMEMBER EVEN!! I'm not saying I can falsify your pontifications. But you can't falsify mine either. You can't even render it probable that criticism has ever occurred even once or that anyone else even exists. So you have precisely ZERO known argument against me or anyone else. You're utterly bankrupt.
Scott: Also, you have yet to explain how it's even possible to calculate the probably of whether a theory itself is true.
J: All inductive criteria render is RELATIVE probability/plausibility, not a specific probability. And that's all that is necessary to render a belief warranted, true or not.
Scott: Except, I'm not the one claiming we cannot make progress.
J: Except that your claims are, by your view, as a-probable as any other and, thus, no basis for anyone else to change their mind over. Is this really rocket science to you?
Scott: For anything to mean anything in the long term, you need an explanatory framework.
J: For anything to be "testable" in any sense regarding the long-term, you have to remember. But if even the claim that we remember is a bald pontification as a-probable as the myriads of combinations of other conceivable historical scenarios, your claim about explaining anything is just bald.
Scott: Scott: Except, I'm not the one claiming we cannot make progress.
DeleteJ: I've never said we haven't made progress. I've said the opposite. You're utterly confused.
Scott, this is from the wikipedia article on critical rationalism:
Delete"The myth that we induce theories from particulars is persistent because when we do this we are often successful, but this is due to the advanced state of our evolved tendencies. If we were really "inducting" theories from particulars, it would be inductively logical to claim that the sun sets because I get up in the morning, or that all buses must have drivers in them (if you've never seen an empty bus)."
Not only does critical rationalism not warrant any claim whatsoever, including the claim that "when we do this we are often successful, but this is due to the advanced state of our evolved tendencies," but it is the case that ONLY teleological inductivism DOES explain why, if at all, "we are often successful."
Moreover, the claim that "If we were really 'inducting' theories from particulars, it would be inductively logical to claim that the sun sets because I get up in the morning, or that all buses must have drivers in them (if you've never seen an empty bus)" does not follow from anything written in an induction chapter in a logic book. It's a straw man pure and simple. If you want to know what logic books describe as inductive thought, read a logic book chapter on induction. Stop the non-sense straw men if you want to be taken seriously.
Scott; For example, what problem is Foundationalism supposed to solve?
DeleteJeff: It doesn't solve anything.
Scott: Then exactly why do you expect anyone to care about it?
[Descriptions of problems I supposed have, but Jeff doesn't]
If Foundationlism doesn't supposedly solve a problem, then exactly do you keep suggesting I have problems that you don't?
And I'm confused beyond belief?
Scott; For example, what problem is Foundationalism supposed to solve?
DeleteJeff: It doesn't solve anything.
Scott: Then exactly why do you expect anyone to care about it?
J: I don't expect you to care about anything, Scott. Why would you when you don't even know if you've ever experienced anything but bliss since you're clueless as to whether you remember or not?
The real question is "Why do you think anyone cares about a view that you admit is EXACTLY as unlikely to be true as ANY other view?" Dude, you really take your self WAY too serious given your absolute denial of the knowable significance of ANY belief whatsoever.
Scott: If Foundationlism doesn't supposedly solve a problem, then exactly do you keep suggesting I have problems that you don't?
J: You're assuming that the non-rejection of naturally-formed beliefs just IS a problem. But why would you assume that? I have all kinds of apparent memories (= naturally-formed beliefs about the past), but I see no problem therefore. Why would I? Why would I choose to criticize any of them UNTIL they are perceived to decrease explanatory breadth? Especially since taking that route hasn't caused me to reject the validity of very many apparent memories at all.
Scott: And I'm confused beyond belief?
J: UTTERLY!
I suspect, Scott, that the inductive criteria talked about in induction chapters in logic books were not deemed irrelevant to criticism to Popper. If not, then he wasn't arguing AGAINST inductive criteria per se. The only question is, why did Popper think ANY criteria have ANY conceivable "convincing" power to any putative "other?" I can answer that question in my epistemology--he can't. Alternatively, how does he explain the incredible degree of agreement as to what happened in the past and what will PROBABLY happen in the future by those he claims (if only by absolute speculation) actually exist? I can answer that question in my epistemology--he can't.
DeleteI can account for why we have words in our vocabulary, like "obvious," "certain," etc. He can't. His view explains nothing relevant to anyone's voluntary life choices.
I can account for why we have words in our vocabulary, like "obvious," "certain," etc.
DeleteHow?
Scott: And I'm confused beyond belief?
DeleteJ: UTTERLY!
I'm more confused than both of you put together!
Jeff: I can account for why we have words in our vocabulary, like "obvious," "certain," etc.
DeletePedant: How?
J: Because people are foundationalists. They can't HELP but use naturally-formed beliefs as putatively VALID (i.e., reality-corresponding) premises in their voluntary discursive reasoning. Using only premises that we never naturally believed doesn't allow for predictions that allows us to figure out how to avoid suffering and/or death. Try it yourself. See how long you can avoid suffering that way. Just kidding, of course. You couldn't do it if you wanted to. You're a foundationalist.
Scott: Except, I'm not the one claiming we cannot make progress.
DeleteJ: I've never said we haven't made progress. I've said the opposite. You're utterly confused.
I said, you're claiming we cannot make progress, not that we haven't made any at all.
In case you've forgotten, you hold the skeptical position on evolutionary theory. As does Cornelius, etc.
It's not that I don't think we actually make progress, it's that I don't think we make progress in the way you think we do. You keep ignoring this clarification.
Jeff: Not only does critical rationalism not warrant any claim whatsoever…
But you said foundationaism doesn't solve any problems. This would include the problem how any warrant you might appeal to would also be warranted, etc. Not to mention the criticisms of Foundationalism I listed above, which you simply ignored.
Jeff: … including the claim that "when we do this we are often successful, but this is due to the advanced state of our evolved tendencies,"...
"Evolved tendencies" refers to our tendencies as universal explainers. We guess and then criticize those guesses in search of errors. That's what it's referring to.
Jeff: … but it is the case that ONLY teleological inductivism DOES explain why, if at all, "we are often successful."
How does it do that, Jeff? "That's just what some designer must have wanted"?
Jeff: If you want to know what logic books describe as inductive thought, read a logic book chapter on induction. Stop the non-sense straw men if you want to be taken seriously.
Again, if you'd bother to read the references I've provided, you'd see this isn't a straw man. Here's another one from Popper himself on the problem of induction and two other subjects.
Scott; For example, what problem is Foundationalism supposed to solve?
DeleteJeff: It doesn't solve anything.
Scott: Then exactly why do you expect anyone to care about it?
Jeff: I don't expect you to care about anything, Scott. Why would you when you [have this problem]?
Scott: If Foundationlism doesn't supposedly solve a problem, then exactly do you keep suggesting I have problems that you don't?
Jeff: You're assuming that the non-rejection of naturally-formed beliefs just IS a problem. But why would you assume that?
Where did I say I reject the idea that I have memories? Please be specific. And I'm confused?
I'm specifically referring to the specific non-rejection of beliefs *because they have a quality or property of themselves being "natural"* rather than being the product of a natural behavior for people which are subject to criticism. This particular non-rejection is what I'm referring to as a problem. And there are specific criticisms in this comment which you have yet to address.
Because people are foundationalists. They can't HELP but use naturally-formed beliefs as putatively VALID (i.e., reality-corresponding) premises in their voluntary discursive reasoning.
DeleteHow does Jeff KNOW this? I can see that he might hypothesize it, but if I recall correctly, when I asked a while ago what support he had for another of his authoritative pronouncements about human beliefs, he didn't answer; instead he accused me of denying reason, or some other shameful behavior.
I understand that such concepts might be widely held, but that is an empirical question that can only be answered by asking it of lots of people.
I, for one, might have been a foundationist at a certain age, but I've learned to question such assumptions. I don't use "obvious" or "certain" and I know few scientifically trained people who do. And applying those mental habits to to daily life has so far caused me no suffering at all.
Using only premises that we never naturally believed doesn't allow for predictions that allows us to figure out how to avoid suffering and/or death.
DeleteI'm interested in learning how Jeff has figured out how to avoid death.
Scott: In case you've forgotten, you hold the skeptical position on evolutionary theory.
DeleteJ: You hold a skeptical position on everything, Scott. You just define the terms different. But by the average persons's (and scientist's) definition of skeptical, you're UTTERLY skeptical of EVERYTHING.
I don't think all of evolutionary theory is void of inductive evidence. I'm only skeptic of naturalistic UCA because there is zero inductive evidence for it. You don't even believe there's such a thing as positive evidence, so you agree with me on this one by pure chance.
I'll respond to the rest later.
Pedant: I don't use "obvious" or "certain" and I know few scientifically trained people who do.
DeleteJ: So in your opinion mathematicians would agree that the probability of 2+2 equaling 4 is identical to 2+2 equaling any other real number, as Scott does? And you wonder why no one can take you people seriously?
Pedant: And applying those mental habits to to daily life has so far caused me no suffering at all.
J: That's beside the point. The question is do you thing ANY belief is knowably more probably true than ANY other belief? Scott says we can't. What say you? If you agree with Scott, none of us have any reason to debate at all. Or even suppose any other debaters even exist, for that matter.
So in your opinion mathematicians would agree that the probability of 2+2 equaling 4 is identical to 2+2 equaling any other real number, as Scott does? And you wonder why no one can take you people seriously?
DeleteGood Lord, Jeff, do you not understand the difference between a definition and an empirical hypothesis? Probabilities refer to the latter. Definitions are by definition tautologies and therefore "obvious."
I admit that I'm having difficulty taking you seriously. You seem to be remarkably uninformed.
That's beside the point. The question is do you thing ANY belief is knowably more probably true than ANY other belief?
DeleteWell, Jeff, you made the assertion that I'm suffering, and when I tell you that I'm not, you brush that aside, and you say now that my lack of suffering is beside the point. What, indeed, was the point? I think that you are incapable of making up your mind in your determination to win whatever fight you think you're waging.
So now, dancing as fast as you can, you ask whether I think that ANY belief is knowably more probably true than ANY other belief.
I answer yes, I rely on my estimate (admittedly fallible) of probabilities to weigh the cogency of my beliefs all the time.
If you agree with Scott, none of us have any reason to debate at all.
I agree with Scott more often than not. I most certainly do not agree with you tendentious characterizations of his positions.
Scott has claimed multiple times that we can NOT know that any idea/proposition/theory/belief is more probable than any other and that there is no such thing as POSITIVE evidence. Pay attention or whine to someone who cares.
DeleteNor did I say you were suffering. Apparently you can't understand me or Scott. Not surprising.
DeletePedant, here's what Scott claims (if I'm wrong, Scott, PLEASE clarify).
Delete1) Intellectual progress is not additive, but subtractive.
2) However, what we subtract is JUST AS LIKELY to be true as what we haven't yet subtracted, because ...
3) NO belief/proposition/etc is knowably more probable than any other, and in fact,
4) We don't even know that the law of identity or the law of non-contradiction is true, meaning
5) that for every proposition, there could be an infinite set of ILlogical alternate possibilities that are, for all we could possibly know, EQUALLY probable in truth as any of those propositions.
Scott keeps expecting to me to prove something. I don't have to. He has to explain how his epistemology accounts for the value of debate. But that's impossible. I'm not claiming SA is demonstrable. I'm claiming naturalistic UCA is void of INDUCTIVE evidence. And it is. And Scott thinks inductive evidence isn't positive evidence in the first place. So he's basically in agreement with me in my claim. He just thinks I'm supposed to side with him for no reason that he has yet been able to articulate. And Scott hasn't provided any positive evidence (since he denies that it exists) that any significant number of scientists mean by "evidence" something other than "positive evidence." He just keeps throwing the word "we" around as if he's done that empirical study you think I am required to do.
J1: 2) However, what we subtract is JUST AS LIKELY to be true as what we haven't yet subtracted, because ...
DeleteJ2: Correction - 2) However, what we subtract is, for all we know, JUST AS LIKELY to be true as what we haven't yet subtracted, because ...
Scott: I said, you're claiming we cannot make progress, not that we haven't made any at all.
DeleteJ: I didn't say that either. I'm saying induction is how we make progress. Indeed, the validity of induction is the only CONCEIVABLE way progress CAN be made. You certainly haven't explained progress by starting with the claim that no proposition can ever be known to be more probably true than any other.
Scott: In case you've forgotten, you hold the skeptical position on evolutionary theory. As does Cornelius, etc.
J: Skepticism, per inductivism, is nothing more than the absence of belief due to absence of inductive evidence. And you agree that there is no positive inductive evidence for naturalistic UCA. So our disagreement is epistemological only. But that's what it typically is for most people. Getting people to define their terms (assuming communication is possible) so that the REAL area of disagreement will become apparent is like pulling teeth, though.
Scott: It's not that I don't think we actually make progress, it's that I don't think we make progress in the way you think we do. You keep ignoring this clarification.
J: I accept the clarification. I just realize your definition of progress has nothing to do with knowable human satisfaction. Thus, I'm not interested in your definition of progress. Why would I be? Since it has no discernable relation to human satisfaction, what would motivate me to care about it?
Jeff: Not only does critical rationalism not warrant any claim whatsoever…
Scott: But you said foundationaism doesn't solve any problems. This would include the problem how any warrant you might appeal to would also be warranted, etc. Not to mention the criticisms of Foundationalism I listed above, which you simply ignored.
J: Well, Scott, if you count satisfying an impulse of curiosity as solving a problem, I suppose foundationalism does solve problems in THAT sense. Foundationalism EXPLAINS why we believe most of what we believe and, hence, do. Your view doesn't explain ANYTHING about what you OR I believe or do.
Jeff: … including the claim that "when we do this we are often successful, but this is due to the advanced state of our evolved tendencies,"...
Scott: "Evolved tendencies" refers to our tendencies as universal explainers. We guess and then criticize those guesses in search of errors. That's what it's referring to.
J: But there's that infinite regress of guesses, Scott. Without foundationalism to at least account for the MENU of conceivable options to guess about, you can explain NOTHING. Moreover, you deny having ANY clue of whether you have actually guessed in the first place.
Jeff: … but it is the case that ONLY teleological inductivism DOES explain why, if at all, "we are often successful."
Scott: How does it do that, Jeff? "That's just what some designer must have wanted"?
J: Explanation is teleological activity. It is done TO increase satisfaction and/or decrease dissatisfaction. But no one could know that satisfaction is or isn't being affected by anything whatsoever if we have no idea whether we remember. It turns out that the VALIDITY of our beliefs about our teleological success in positively affecting our satisfaction is ONLY explicable in terms of an order that is INTENTIONALLY fitted to our capacities to BE successful, thus. That explanation is doable consitent with the validity of induction. No other is. And no other epistemology accounts for human distinctions OTHER than an inductive one.
The bottom line is, there's no such knowable thing AS "meaning," even, if foundationalism is false. For meaning/intelligibility depend upon the validity of the law of identity, etc. If there is no such knowable law, communication is inconceivable/unintelligible, let alone knowably doable.
DeleteJeff: If you want to know what logic books describe as inductive thought, read a logic book chapter on induction. Stop the non-sense straw men if you want to be taken seriously.
Scott: Again, if you'd bother to read the references I've provided, you'd see this isn't a straw man. Here's another one from Popper himself on the problem of induction and two other subjects.
J: Here is the error in that link:
"Hume showed that it is not possible to infer a theory from observation statements; but this does not affect the possibility of refuting a theory by observation statements."
If no propositions can ever be known to be more or less probable than another, the second half of that sentence is pure non-sense. The positing of the historical occurrence of theories, minds, thoughts, observations, or even universes of 3 or more entities, and so on are all equally a-probable posits. "Refutation" has no conceivable meaning knowably relevant to anything in your epistemology.
Scott: Where did I say I reject the idea that I have memories? Please be specific.
J: You don't deny POSITING that there are specific past events that have occurred at various times in the past. But that's not what "APPARENT memory" MEANS! Thus, you deny having APPARENT MEMORIES. You claim to just POSIT independently of positive evidence. But if positing is not libertarianly-caused by you, then what, pray tell, is the difference between positing and the mere experiencing of any other conscious state? And if it IS libertarianly-caused by you, where did you get the menu of concepts from which to choose thus if foundationalism isn't the explanation FOR the menu?
Scott: I'm specifically referring to the specific non-rejection of beliefs *because they have a quality or property of themselves being "natural"* rather than being the product of a natural behavior for people which are subject to criticism. This particular non-rejection is what I'm referring to as a problem.
J: Why is it a problem, Scott? Why is it a problem to me that I can see no problem entailed in the apparentness of certain apparent memories? Explain that. This is where your view is just nutty. I'm supposed to just SEE a problem with ALL naturally-formed beliefs? Where does "I'm supposed to" even need to be taken seriously in a view that says all propositions are equally a-probable?
Jeff said above:
DeleteSee how long you can avoid suffering that way.
To what in blazes was "that way" referring? If it was not to being emancipated from Jeff's presuppositions, what was it?
Now, Jeff says:
Nor did I say you were suffering. Apparently you can't understand me or Scott. Not surprising.
Why are you not surprised? You say that I should be suffering and then you say I am not suffering. And it's my fault that I don't understand you. Is it conceivable that Jeff is deranged?
You're confused, Pedant. You're not DOING what Scott is doing. That's the point. You actually BELIEVE that some beliefs have positive evidence for them. Scott doesn't. That's why you avoid suffering. Scott does too. Because before he made "progress" epistemologically by turning his brain off, he had already formed good habits by thinking like a sane person. Hence, he still continues to look both ways before crossing the street by habit even though he doesn't believe there is any positive evidence for the existence of streets or cars or fatalities due to cars hitting pedestrians.
DeleteWe don't have instincts like animals do. Our parents manage the amount of learning-by-pain we do as infants/children so that we don't permanently and profoundly damage or kill ourselves at very young ages. That way we have time to learn inductively and form survival-oriented/harm-avoiding habits. That's why people can become complete morons once they're adults. Because their habits alone keep them going despite their newly-embraced epistemological bankruptcy.
Thanks, Jeff. So I'm not thinking like Scott is thinking and when I burn my hand on something hot, and I form the belief that hot things burn, that's OK. (It sure helps avoid suffering.) But Scott rejects such a system of belief formation and has no clue as to the source of burns. Therefore, Scott keeps hurting himself.
DeleteDo I have that right, or am I still confused?
Apparently you didn't read my last post. Or you can't follow a very simple argument. Or you have no idea what a habit is or how and why they're formed. Or that habits are non-voluntary action. None of which is surprising at this point.
DeleteYou are truly clueless about the even the simplest of matters. It explains why fideism is your only route. And this means that you are JUST like the naive religious people who ALSO refuse to think for themselves.
Thanks, Jeff.
DeleteYour insulting behavior is a tacit admission of incoherence.
Evidently, you prefer to talk to yourself. That's a good idea; there's no better audience for a solipsist.
Thanks for bowing out. I don't have time for people who don't even read what I say.
DeleteAnd, apparently, you never read what Scott said either. Scott is probably the only one posting here that believes all propositions are and will ever be UTTERLY void of positive evidence.
DeleteJeff,
DeleteWe don't have instincts like animals do.
Can you provide some evidence for this assertion? This seems contrary to fact.
Our parents manage the amount of learning-by-pain we do as infants/children so that we don't permanently and profoundly damage or kill ourselves at very young ages
This seems common throughout the animal kingdom,
That way we have time to learn inductively and form survival-oriented/harm-avoiding habits.
So is all learning inductively based? If so, do animals use induction as well?
Jeff,
DeleteScott is probably the only one posting here that believes all propositions are and will ever be UTTERLY void of positive evidence.
Of course the only way you avoid the same conclusion is to assume teleology, then induction ,then God if I recall.
Jeff: We don't have instincts like animals do.
DeleteV: Can you provide some evidence for this assertion? This seems contrary to fact.
J: What few instincts we have, like sucking as infants are not sufficient to account for our survival in the way animal instincts plus association is for them. Or do you think all animals have libertarian free-will?
V: Our parents manage the amount of learning-by-pain we do as infants/children so that we don't permanently and profoundly damage or kill ourselves at very young ages
V: This seems common throughout the animal kingdom,
J: But the instincts of young animals get them to independence MUCH quicker than humans. Again, do you think all animals are using libertarian freedom to adjudicate what to do next at relevant points in their life?
Jeff: That way we have time to learn inductively and form survival-oriented/harm-avoiding habits.
V: So is all learning inductively based?
J: No, we learn associatively as do animals.
V: If so, do animals use induction as well?
J: I don't think so. Because they show no progress of the kinds and degrees that we make. Thus, since I think discursive reasoning is conceived of as free activity (to condition how we can and do distinguish it from intuition, association, etc), I don't think animals are libertarianly-free. And that explains why they have so many more instincts than we do. We don't need as many since libertarianly-free reasoning makes up for the lack and even gives us an edge of sorts.
Jeff: Scott is probably the only one posting here that believes all propositions are and will ever be UTTERLY void of positive evidence.
V: Of course the only way you avoid the same conclusion is to assume teleology, then induction ,then God if I recall.
J: Well, it works in the other order. I induce as a pain-avoidance mode of action. Later, upon analysis, I see that teleological inductivism is the only inductivism that is coherent/intelligible. And I realize that without the validity of inductive criteria, I know pretty much nothing worth knowing, like Scott.
But yeah, that pretty much explains why I think debate can have some teleological value for teleologists. It has no conceivable value to people who don't believe in teleology. It gets you just what Scott says it gets you--the illusion that you're freely generating propositions, but propositions that are all EQUALLY a-probable and, hence, of no value for free action-adjudication.
You see, V, when I talk of value, I'm talking about value of a normative kind. Value that is both knowable and actionable in the sense that we're free. If we aren't free, such normativity doesn't exist; such knowable value doesn't exist; such knowable memory of sentient experiences doesn't exist; and, thus, such knowable comparisons of putative past sentient experiences doesn't exist.
In fact, without foundationalism, even statements like "I exist" can't be known to be true. Because propositions, to be intelligible, have to be understood in terms of categorical relationships--relationship of subject to predicate, etc. And also necessary is the distinction between being and relation. But these are only available to the mind foundationally. No infinite regress is conceivably explanatory of how we acquired them.
DeletePopper: "Hume showed that it is not possible to infer a theory from observation statements; but this does not affect the possibility of refuting a theory by observation statements."
DeleteJeff: If no propositions can ever be known to be more or less probable than another, the second half of that sentence is pure non-sense.
Can you know that proposition is more or less probable than another?
I'll get to the rest of your comments once you address this question.
Scott: Can you know that proposition is more or less probable than another?
DeleteJ: My answer is irrelevant to you since you don't believe I can. All I can say, then, is that IF no proposition is knowably more probable than any other, that claim renders utterly unknowable the following claim:
"... but this does not affect the possibility of refuting a theory by observation statements."
Because by your view, we can't even know we've ever remembered per se, much less remembered anything in particular--including whether we've ever thought an "observation statement."
Note, Scott, that I, like you, simply MUST assume the validity of the law of non-contradiction to even communicate with you intelligibly. But you deny I can even know the LNC is valid. In other words, you can't even explain how we're communicating, assuming we are.
DeleteShould I take that as a "No." Jeff?
DeleteI'd point out that I haven't rejected the law of non contradiction, but I've already done so several times.
DeleteSo, apparently, Jeff thinks the only reason to adopt an idea is if it's somehow positively justified. But it's unclear how he positively justifies the idea that we should only adopt ideas that are justified.
To quote Popper..
The question about the sources of our knowledge . . . has always been asked in the spirit of: ‘What are the best sources of our knowledge—the most reliable ones, those which will not lead us into error, and those to which we can and must turn, in case of doubt, as the last court of appeal?’ I propose to assume, instead, that no such ideal sources exist—no more than ideal rulers—and that all ‘sources’ are liable to lead us into error at times. And I propose to replace, therefore, the question of the sources of our knowledge by the entirely different question: ‘How can we hope to detect and eliminate error?’ (emphasis mine)
Is Jeff suggesting that Popper's question less probably true than the former? Exactly what's going on here?
Popper: And I propose to replace, therefore, the question of the sources of our knowledge by the entirely different question: ‘How can we hope to detect and eliminate error?’
DeleteJ: Scott, "detection" is knowledge of the traditional kind, unless you mean something totally different by that word as well. By your view, the historical occurrence of detection is not knowable.
Scott: So, apparently, Jeff thinks the only reason to adopt an idea is if it's somehow positively justified.
DeleteJ: How many times do I have to tell you that I think beliefs occur both naturally and voluntarily. Beliefs that occur naturally are not adopted. They just occur. Beliefs that are adopted are just beliefs that are thus far seen to be those yet holding up to voluntary inductive criticism.
Scott: I'd point out that I haven't rejected the law of non contradiction, but I've already done so several times.
DeleteScott: So, apparently, Jeff thinks the only reason to adopt an idea is if it's somehow positively justified. But it's unclear how he positively justifies the idea that we should only adopt ideas that are justified.
Jeff: How many times do I have to tell you that I think beliefs occur both naturally and voluntarily. Beliefs that occur naturally are not adopted. They just occur.
OK, then, apparently, Jeff thinks the only reason I should adopt / hold an idea is if it's positively justified or if it "Just occurs". And, apparently, in the absence of these two ways, not having rejected the law of non-contradiction isn't sufficient.
This very proposition, that this is somehow not sufficient - is it positively justified or did it "just occur?"
Scott: OK, then, apparently, Jeff thinks the only reason I should adopt / hold an idea is if it's positively justified or if it "Just occurs".
DeleteJ: No. Rather, the only reason why you should expect CH to change his mind is IF some beliefs are warranted. But you can't even say that's more or less probable than not, EITHER. So I have no idea why you're arguing against him. Why would he care to change if changing just moves him to another a-probable position that has no knowable value to him?
But it's worse. By your view, you don't even APPARENTLY remember that CH exists.
Jeff: But it's worse. By your view, you don't even APPARENTLY remember that CH exists.
DeleteI'd again point out that I haven't rejected the idea that we at least have some actual memories. However, Jeff seems to think this is insufficient because he thinks only reason I should adopt / hold an idea is if it's positively justified or if it "Just occurs".
Again, this very proposition, that this is somehow insufficient - is it positively justified or did it "just occur?"
Which is it?
Again, in the interest of making progress and not distracting you, I'll respond to the rest of your questions once this is addressed.
Jeff: How many times do I have to tell you that I think beliefs occur both naturally and voluntarily. Beliefs that occur naturally are not adopted. They just occur.
DeleteWhy should we think that beliefs that "just occur" are true or probability true? What property or feature do they posses that allows them to justify non-basic beliefs?
For example, in the twin tables illusion the belief that one table is longer than the other "just occurs". Yet, we can criticize that belief by using lines to measure their hight and width. Furthermore, when the lines are removed it still "just occurs" when the illusion returns. So, I'm confused as to exactly what "just occurs" has to do with a belief being true, probably true, etc.
Scott: Why should we think that beliefs that "just occur" are true or probability true?
DeleteJ: Before I proceed, are you here FINALLY admitting that some beliefs just OCCUR non-voluntarily? Or are you still saying that that claim is no more probable than the contrary claim? For if the latter, what difference does anything I'm reading with your name by it make? None of it is believed by you to be more likely true than CH's views.
You're not saying anything relevant to anything or anybody, Scott. You're a radical skeptic, pure and simple. If you're not, how would you define a radical skeptic? I can't even imagine.
If you don't want to answer the question, Jeff, that's fine with me. I've got better things to do.
DeleteHere’s a summary from the following article.
Deletehttp://seedmagazine.com/content/article/from_divided_minds_a_specious_soul/
A woman enters the hospital after having a right brain stroke. She is immediately given a treatment that will eventually restore blood flow to the effected part of her right brain, resulting in a near compete recovery. However, during her initial assessment by a neurologist one entire half of her right brain is essentially offline.
During the assessment, the woman is missing sensory input and motor control from one entire half of her right brain. As such, she doesn’t recognize her left arm is actually her’s because she cannot move it or sense it. However, the other half of her brain remembers that she is married and it recognizes the ring on the hand of this same arm as her wedding ring.
What “just occurs”? While trying to make sense of the sensory input she does have, the woman believes the arm actually belongs to the neurologist instead and that he’s stolen her wedding ring.
Despite explaining to the woman that she’s just had a stroke and pointing out that the arm in question is actually attached to her body, not his, the best he can do is to almost convince her that he’s not a thief for but a few seconds, at which point her earlier conclusion “just occurs” again. She is helpless to do anything but *explain* her limited sensory input with *this* theory. It’s completely non-voluntary. She cannot be talked out of it.
To quote the article…
It is not the left hemisphere’s job to recognize the left arm, and the left hemisphere can’t immediately step in to do that task. To the left brain, the left side of the body essentially does not exist. The right brain has failed, not only to process arm information, but failed to let the left hemisphere know it failed.
For Mrs. Blanford, it isn’t only that her left brain can’t do the right brain’s task. The left hemisphere also can’t recognize that there is missing data, or that there is something wrong with the data it receives. It has to use the data it has, so the left hemisphere comes up with confabulations, creating verbal fabrications to explain away missing information. In this case the confabulation becomes, “That is your arm, not mine.” Although easy to falsify, the idea is internally consistent, makes some sense of the scrambled internal data, and feels correct. The injured brain creates a confabulation to maintain a unity of self and a feeling of control. We find a brain convincing itself of something that feels right, but isn’t. (Emphasis mine)
Eventually, blood flow does return, the right half of her brain comes back online and, like other people who recover, she can’t imagine how she could have possibly denied such an “obvious” fact.
So, again, why should we think that beliefs that "just occur" are true or probability true? What property or feature do they posses that allows them to justify non-basic beliefs?
Scott: So, again, why should we think that beliefs that "just occur" are true or probability true?
DeleteJ: Those are 2 separate questions. I'll take 'em one at a time.
1) I've already answered it before. Your view is not conceivable in terms of the law of non-contradiction (LNC). Because you claim that you don't believe that apparent memories occur. And that means you don't even have a clue who you are or what you have or haven't done. And yet you turn around and imply that you know what you've adopted, what you've criticized, etc.
There is no definition of "belief," "knowledge," etc to even make those conflicting claims intelligible as far as I can tell. My view allows for the INTELLIGIBILITY of my articulated propositions!!!!!!! They could be FALSE for all you know. But they ARE intelligible in terms of the LNC.
2) Forget "more or less probable." Let's say warranted or not warranted. This amounts to something very similar. Now, there is no "WHY" do we believe that some beliefs are warranted and others aren't. The fact is, we DO. We USE those words. This means, if we explain in terms of the LNC and a communal/conventional language, that the words that communicate those normative relations can NOT be eliminated from human language. Humans can contradict themselves. But they can NOT cease to use such language.
Let me give you an example. Dawkins doesn't believe in free-will. But he says ID'ists are lazy. WHAT, pray tell, does "lazy" even MEAN if there is no free-will? In other words, I don't have to have a category that explains teleological causality. Teleological causality SEEMS to BE categorical. And this is why inductivism is natural as breathing for humans. Because inductivism is a corollary of the principle of causality PLUS benevolent/competent teleology.
No determinist can talk coherently AS a determinist using conventional language. So you would have to create your own language and lexicon to even communicate a non-teleological world view. And even then, a determinist would, per conventional language, seem to pendulum swing from pontificating like a pope or stating denials of knowledge, just like you do. For ultimately, there is no difference with respect to skepticism and utter credulity for either one who avows determinism or one who claims agnosticism in the matter. Both views require that ALL statements articulated in conventional language sound like utter pontification or utter skepticism.
Try it yourself. See if you can create a lexicon which could be expressed in conventional language that could rid itself of all teleological concepts/relations and by which one could communicate without violating the LNC. So far, you can't even define "information," "worthy," and all kinds of other words. This is what happens when you deny categories of the common man. You cease to be able to account for conceptual distinctions entailed in conventional language.
Viewed from your perspective, the frustration of an overwhelming desire to communicate is a problem. The solution is to inductively explain what other people are attempting to communicate by words. When we do this, we end up with a conventional language that just DOES, per that inductive approach, have all the same distinctions that I find my own mind making, and with no apparent memory that I ever intentionally generated those distinction-enabling categories out of "thin air."
DeleteScott: So, again, why should we think that beliefs that "just occur" are true or probability true?
DeleteJeff: 1) I've already answered it before. Your view is not conceivable in terms of the law of non-contradiction (LNC). Because you claim that you don't believe that apparent memories occur.
And, as I've pointed out before, I do not reject the law of non-contradiction or that I have at least some actual memories.
Apparently, you think the only reason I should adopt / hold an idea is that it's somehow warranted / justified or something like that and, apparently, in the absence of this, not having rejected the law of non-contradiction or that I have at least some memories, you think this isn't sufficient.
This very proposition, that this is somehow not sufficient, and in their absence we can know nothing - how is it warranted / justified / likely true?
This is what I meant when I said, apparently, you cannot recognize your conception of human knowledge is subject to criticism. I didn't mean this figuratively, I mean it literally.
Jeff: 2) Forget "more or less probable." Let's say warranted or not warranted. This amounts to something very similar. Now, there is no "WHY" do we believe that some beliefs are warranted and others aren't. The fact is, we DO.
I'm not denying that you allege there is a non-deduective thing called and inductivism and that you think it is valid by its own standards. I agree that you say that.
Rather, as you've pointed out, there are an infinite number of logical possibilities for the same experience. This includes the growth of human knowledge. IOW, I'm suggesting that despite people subjectively experiencing induction, warrant and foundationaism, none of these actually withstand rational criticism. As such, I've discarded them.
In it's place, I've become a Popperian.
The question about the sources of our knowledge . . . has always been asked in the spirit of: ‘What are the best sources of our knowledge—the most reliable ones, those which will not lead us into error, and those to which we can and must turn, in case of doubt, as the last court of appeal?’ I propose to assume, instead, that no such ideal sources exist—no more than ideal rulers—and that all ‘sources’ are liable to lead us into error at times. And I propose to replace, therefore, the question of the sources of our knowledge by the entirely different question: ‘How can we hope to detect and eliminate error?’ (emphasis mine)
Inductive inference contradicts deductive inference since it says that we can get theories from data, but deductive inference says we cannot. So, you're recommending I adopt a type of inference you've never managed to define or explain, that does not solve problems and would require abandoning deductive logic, which *is* well defined and *can* be used to solve problems. Why should I bother?
You're conflating what people naturally do, conjecture theories, with those theories having the status of being natural or basic. Again, I'm saying that conjecture and criticism occurs voluntary and non-voluntary at a subconscious level. This is compatible with our experience.
If you don't know that beliefs that "just occur" are true, probably true, etc., then what are they other than a form of conjecture? They are essentially guesses, intuitions, etc. that we either naturally form and criticize or voluntary form and criticize. Regardless of how shallow, easily varied or poorly criticized, they are conjectured explanations by which we extrapolate experience and observations.
But, by all means, feel free to indicate what feature or property basic / natural beliefs have that actually differentiates them from conjunctures, other than merely calling them "basic" or "natural", such as they are true, likely true, etc.
Jeff: Then we do this, we end up with a conventional language that just DOES, per that inductive approach, have all the same distinctions that I find my own mind making, and with no apparent memory that I ever intentionally generated those distinction-enabling categories out of "thin air."
DeleteSo what? This isn't incompatible with conjecture and criticism at a subconscious level.
That's what the woman did when the right half of her brain went offline. She involuntarily made "sense" out of her incomplete sensory input by concluding her left arm wasn't hers and that her neurologist had taken her wedding ring. What is this other than a form of conjecture?
That one of the key aspects that makes people unique. We're universal explainers. This is part of our best, current explanation for the growth of knowledge
However, you seem to think criticism doesn't apply because you accept the idea that some beliefs are givens or directly intuited, which is a claim of foundationailsm itself. And, in the absence of either, we cannot know anything. Of course you think these things. Foundationalsm is supposedly immune to criticism because foundationaoism says that some beliefs are not based on criticism. It's circular.
Again, how is the proposition that we cannot know anything in the absence of warrant or justification itself warranted or justified?
Apparently, no amount of criticism is relevant because you think basic beliefs are not subject to criticism. If you can't see the problem with this, then I don't think any further discuss will be fruitful.
Again, apparently you cannot recognize that your conception of human knowledge, that we cannot know anything in the absence of warrant or justification, is itself an idea that is subject to criticism.
Scott: That's what the woman did when the right half of her brain went offline.
DeleteJ: Scott, you're claiming that apparent memories don't occur. You're saying you have to VOLUNTARILY conjecture that memories occur. This means you have NOT THE FOGGIEST NOTION whether you've EVER acted voluntarily, conjectured, criticized, solved, noticed a problem, adopted, etc.
So, Scott, it matters not whether my view is dead wrong. Yours could not be known to exist AS a view if I'm wrong about apparent memories. And the only way mine could be known to be true is IF we knew foundationalism was true. Not foundationalist beliefs that are justified, but foundationalist beliefs that occur naturally and survive criticism for one reason or another. Criticism, i.e., that involves criteria that are not VOLUNTARILY used at first. It takes reflection to even learn WHAT they are. And then we theorize as to why they were used NATURALLY prior to our conceiving of them individually as a product of analysis.
Take the LNC. I have no reason whatsoever to believe that humans used the LNC VOLUNTARILY as infants. But I can't account for how they think in propositions UNLESS they used the LNC NATURALLY originally as a criteria for classification organization.
DeleteScott: That's what the woman did when the right half of her brain went offline.
DeleteJeff: Scott, you're claiming that apparent memories don't occur.
I'm saying that induction doesn't actually provide guidance, which would be necessary to extrapolate theories from observations or experience. We always get more out than we put in. So, nothing can be "apparent" in the sense that you seem to be implying. This doesn't mean I reject the idea that I have at least some memories that are actually based on reality in some sense.
So, I'm approaching it from the opposite direction. That we actually have memories is a extremely hard to vary link implicated in nearly all of our hard to vary chains of explanations.
On the other hand, IIRC, you're saying memories are apparent in the sense that the knowledge that at least some memories are actual memories already exists "out there". All we do is extrapolate it via experience or some yet to be explained principal of induction. But this doesn't withstand rational criticism. No one has managed to formulate such a principle that actually works, in practice.
Even if we ignore criticism of Foundationiasm you have yet to address, It's unclear how evidence can be additive based on those basic beliefs because evidence always looks like....
a is x or y or z or w …
b is x or y or z or w …
…etc. In order for induction to be a method of creating knowledge that people can actually use, in practice, it has to provide guidance to choose between x, y, z, etc. It has to offer a way to pick between them. It's unclear how induction actually solves this problem.
But when we take a critical approach, we look at the evidence from the opposite perspective.
a is ~i ^ ~j ^ ~k …
b is ~i ^ ~j ^ ~k …
IOW, we focus on not on what evidence is consistent with but what evidence is inconsistent with.
At which point, If we tentatively accept the evidence, we can rule out i, j, k, etc. When we focus on criticism of ideas, rather than support, we avoid major logical roadblocks and we actually make progress, in practice.
Jeff: You're saying you have to VOLUNTARILY conjecture that memories occur.
DeleteAre you sure you're reading the right comment? Here's what I actually wrote...
Scott: That's what the woman did when the right half of her brain went offline. She involuntarily made "sense" out of her incomplete sensory input by concluding her left arm wasn't hers and that her neurologist had taken her wedding ring. What is this other than a form of conjecture?
What part of this do you not understand?
Again, one of the key aspects that makes people unique. We're universal explainers. Creating explanations is what people do on a conscious and unconscious level. From this article on Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)…
Now imagine that you require a program with a more ambitious functionality: to address some outstanding problem in theoretical physics — say the nature of Dark Matter — with a new explanation that is plausible and rigorous enough to meet the criteria for publication in an academic journal.
Such a program would presumably be an AGI (and then some). But how would you specify its task to computer programmers? Never mind that it’s more complicated than temperature conversion: there’s a much more fundamental difficulty. Suppose you were somehow to give them a list, as with the temperature-conversion program, of explanations of Dark Matter that would be acceptable outputs of the program. If the program did output one of those explanations later, that would not constitute meeting your requirement to generate new explanations. For none of those explanations would be new: you would already have created them yourself in order to write the specification. So, in this case, and actually in all other cases of programming genuine AGI, only an algorithm with the right functionality would suffice. But writing that algorithm (without first making new discoveries in physics and hiding them in the program) is exactly what you wanted the programmers to do!
This is what I mean by our best, current explanation for the universal creation of knowledge, in that it is genuinely created where it did not exist before though a process of trial and error. We genuinely create new explanations. They are not out there for us to extrapolate from data.
Jeff: This means you have NOT THE FOGGIEST NOTION whether you've EVER acted voluntarily, conjectured, criticized, solved, noticed a problem, adopted, etc.
Again, you're claiming the only reason I should adopt / hold an idea is that it's somehow warranted / justified or something like that and, apparently, in the absence of this, you think not having rejected the law of non-contradiction or not having rejected that I have at least some memories, isn't sufficient.
This very proposition, that this is somehow not sufficient, and in their absence we can know nothing - how is it warranted / justified / likely true? Please be specific.
As for the rest, it repeats the same mistake, so I won't address it. You're conflating something people naturally do, with a belief having the status of being natural or basic. What you're describing is compatible with conjecture and criticism.
Scott: This is what I mean by our best, current explanation for the universal creation of knowledge, in that it is genuinely created where it did not exist before though a process of trial and error.
DeleteJ: I only have time to address this absurdity, which is enough to cover them all. For the umpteenth time: If NO proposition is knowably more probably true than any other proposition, there is no such conceivable thing as a "trial." To put on TRIAL is to KNOW that your criteria is VALID. Otherwise, there is no trial at all. You're so confused it's mind-boggling.
When introns were first discovered, evolutionist figured they were yet more junk DNA.
ReplyDeleteNot that there's anything wrong with that conjecture, but I don't remember that opinion being widely expressed at the time. I wonder if Dr Hunter can back up that claim with references to the scientific literature.
Although late to the party, I have to say some of Dd Hunter's statements are quite incisive.
ReplyDeleteFor example:
Many introns are quite long and some are short.
Now, who could argue with that?