11.10.08
Posted in art, epistemology, ethics, language, logic, metaphysics, mind, ontology, philosophy, preterphysics, science at 4:12 pm by nogre
What follows is the second part of my metaphysics, which includes the basic outline of just about everything in this world: nature, science, ethics, language and more. Again it is impossibly short, but the overall structure is correct, so you get a flavor of how I think about everything non-preterphysical.
————
1 Metaphysical Ontology
1.1 Undisciplined Substances
To be disciplined is to take other people’s ontological position into consideration. Since it is impossible, without being crazy, to do otherwise, what is meant by `undisciplined’ is the minimal position: to take other people’s ontological position into consideration as little as possible.
1.1.1 Objects, Processes and Nature
Objects cannot exists alone. To observe an object, to recognize its existence, requires observing some process that the object is part of. Rational beings can lose their rationality; the process of losing rationality identifies a rational being, because the process could not occur without the existence of one.
Objects and processes are what make up Nature.
1.1.2 Words, Descriptions and Language
Words cannot exist alone; they are inseparable from descriptions. For a word to exist is for that word to be part of some description. Without being part of a description, a word is indistinguishable from anything else.
Words and descriptions are what make up Language.
1.1.3 Commitments, Values and Responsibility
Commitments cannot exist alone; they are inseparable from values. Values are how commitments are ranked. Without values all commitments are equal, and hence non-existent.
Commitments and values are what make up Responsibility.
1.2 Disciplined Substances
When you take other people into consideration when considering substance, then you have disciplined substance.
1.2.1 Science, Art and Craft
When we describe objects and processes in a disciplined way then we are describing nature scientifically. This means that the objects and processes are described in a way that is not limited to a particular person or place.
Craft is a level of discipline that is not as universalized: when you describe nature such that it refers to a group of people or various places, then you are describing craft.
1.2.2 Grammar, Logic and Rhetoric
When we describe words and descriptions in a disciplined way then we are are talking about the language’s grammar. This means that the words and descriptions are described in a way that is not limited to a particular description. If we are describing features that all languages have, then this is called logic.
Rhetoric is a level of discipline that is not as universalized: when you describe grammar such that it refers to a group of words or descriptions, then you are describing rhetoric.
1.2.3 Ethics, Worldview and Society
When we describe commitments and values in a disciplined way then we are talking about ethical responsibilities. This means that the commitments and values are described in a way that is not limited to a particular person or place. If we are describing features that all ethics have then this is a worldview.
Society is a level of discipline that is not as universalized: when you describe ethics such that it refers to a group of commitments or values, then you are describing a society.
File translated from TEX by TTH, version 3.79. On 10 Nov 2008, 14:59.
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09.01.08
Posted in mind, philosophy, science at 11:19 am by nogre
Back in January I wrote up a post on what I believe to be a major problem in the study of consciousness. Now, with the introduction of Consciousness Online (started by the estimable R. Brown), I feel my dilemma should get some renewed attention.
Here’s the argument:
- Assume someone knows what consciousness/mind is.
- If someone knows something, then it is part of his or her consciousness.
- If someone knows what consciousness is, then his or her consciousness has a part that contains consciousness.
- Therefore someone has a consciousness that contains consciousness.
Up until this point I am willing to grant that all this is possible. Our consciousness may be able to contain itself within itself. But could we write it down?
- We can only write or say finite things.
- If someone’s consciousness contains consciousness, then their contained consciousness contains consciousness itself and so on ad infinitum; this person’s consciousness has a self referential infinite regression.
- Writing down what consciousness is would require us to write something infinite.
- Therefore we cannot write down/ say what the consciousness is.
One might think that we would still be able to figure out pieces and put them together to get the full picture, and use terms like ad infinitum to represent some infinite, but comprehensible, process. However this would require us to know that the picture that we were putting together was an accurate one. The only way to know that we were putting together an accurate picture would be to already have an overall theory of consciousness that we knew to be correct. Hence the piecemeal approach begs the question.
With no bottom up method possible, nor any top down method available, even if someone were to discover what consciousness is, she wouldn’t be able to tell anyone. Therefore we will never have a full understanding of our consciousness.
So the dilemma is to come up with a story about philosophy of mind (and associated disciplines) while necessarily lacking a story about consciousness. Anyone have anything to say?
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08.18.08
Posted in Relativity, Special Relativity, biology, epistemology, evolution, fitness, independence friendly logic, logic, measurement, mind, philosophy, physics, science, technology at 1:26 pm by nogre
I just returned from a cruise to Alaska. It is a wonderful, beautiful place. I zip-lined in a rain forest canopy, hiked above a glacier, kayaked coastal Canada and was pulled by sled-dogs. Anywho, as on many cruises, there was a casino, which is an excellent excuse for me to discuss probability.
What is probability and where does it come from? Definitions are easy enough to find. Google returns:
a measure of how likely it is that some event will occur; a number expressing the ratio of favorable cases to the whole number of cases possible …
So it’s a measure of likelihood. What’s likelihood? Google returns:
The probability of a specified outcome.
Awesome. So ‘probability as likelihood’ is non-explanatory. What about this ‘ratio of favorable cases to the whole number of cases possible’? I’m pretty wary about the word favorable. Let’s modify this definition to read:
a number expressing the ratio of certain cases to the whole number of cases possible.
Nor do I like ‘a number expressing…’ This refers to a particular probability, not probability at large, so let’s go back to using ‘measure’:
a measure of certain cases to the whole number of cases possible.
We need to be a bit more explicit about what we are measuring:
a measure of the frequency of certain cases to the whole number of cases possible.
OK. I think this isn’t that bad. When we flip a fair coin the probability is the frequency of landing on heads compared to the total cases possible, heads + tails, so 1 out of 2. Pretty good.
But notice the addition of the word fair. Where did it come from, what’s it doing there? Something is said to be fair if that thing shows no favoritism to any person or process. In terms of things that act randomly, this means that the thing acts in a consistently random way. Being consistently random means it is always random, not sometimes random and other times not random. This means that fairness has to do with the distribution of the instances of the cases we are studying. What governs this distribution?
In the case of of a coin, the shape of the coin and the conditions under which it is measured make all the difference in the distribution of heads and tails. The two sides, heads and tails, must be distinguishable, but the coin must be flipped in a way such that no one can know which side will land facing up. The shape of the coin, even with uniform mass distribution, cannot preclude this previous condition. Therefore the source of probability is the interdependence of physical conditions (shape and motion of the coin) and an epistemic notion (independence of knowledge of which side will land up). When the physical conditions and our knowledge of the conditions are dependent upon each other then the situation becomes probabilistic because the conditions preclude our knowing the exact outcome of the situation.
It is now time to recall that people cheat at gambling all the time. A trio of people in March 2004 used a computer and lasers to successfully predict the decaying orbit of a ball spinning on a roulette wheel (and walked out with £1.3 million). This indicates that after a certain point it is possible to predict the outcome of a coin flipping or a roulette ball spinning, so the dependence mentioned above is eventually broken. However this is only possible once the coin is flipping or the roulette ball is rolling, not before the person releases the roulette ball or flips the coin.
With the suggestion that it is the person that determines the outcome we can expand the physical-epistemic dependence to an physical-epistemic-performative one. If I know that I, nor anyone else, can predict the outcome until after I perform a task, then the knowledge of the outcome is dependent upon how I perform that task.
This makes sense because magicians and scam artists train themselves to be able to perform tasks like shuffling and dealing cards in ways that most of us think is random but are not. The rest of us believe that there is a dependence between the physical setup and the outcome that precludes knowing the results, but this is merely an illusion that is exploited.
What about instances in which special training or equipment is unavailable; can we guarantee everyone’s ability to measure the thing in question to be equal? We can: light. Anyone who can see at all sees light that is indistinguishable from the light everyone else sees: it has no haecceity.
This lack of distinguishability, lack of haecceity (thisness), is not merely a property of the photon but a physical characteristic of humans. We have no biology that can distinguish one photon from another of equivalent wavelength. To distinguish something we have to use a smaller feature of the thing to tell it apart from its compatriots. Since we cannot see anything smaller, this is impossible. Nor is there a technology that we could use to augment our abilities: for us to have a technology that would see something smaller than a photon would require us to know that the technology interacted at a deeper level with reality than photons do. But we cannot know that because we are physically limited to using the photon as our minimal measurement device. The act of sight is foundational: we cannot see anything smaller than a photon nor can anything smaller exist in our world.
The way we perceive photons will always be inherently distributed because of this too. We cannot uniquely identify a single photon, and hence we can’t come back and measure the properties of a photon we have previously studied. Therefore the best we will be able to accomplish when studying photons is to measure a group of photons and use a distribution of their properties, making photons inherently probabilistic. Since the act of seeing light is a biological feature of humans, we all have equal epistemological footing in this instance. This means that the epistemic dependence mentioned above can be ignored because it adds nothing to the current discussion. Therefore we can eliminate the epistemic notion from our above dependence, reducing it to a physical-performative interdependence.
Since it is a historical/ evolutionary accident that the photon is the smallest object we can perceive, the photon really is not fundamental to this discussion. Therefore, the interdependence of the physical properties of the smallest things we can perceive and our inherent inability to tell them apart is a source of probability in nature.
This is a source of natural randomness as well: once we know the probability of some property that we cannot measure directly, the lack of haecceity means that we will not be able to predict when we will measure an individual with said property. Therefore the order in which we measure the property will inherently be random. [Assume the contradiction: the order in which we measure the property is not random, but follows some pattern. Then there exists some underlying structure that governs the appearance of the property. However, since we are already at the limit of what can be measured, no such thing can exist. Hence the order in which we measure the property is random.]
————–
If I were Wittgenstein I might have said:
Consider a situation in which someone asks, “How much light could you see?” Perhaps a detective is asking a hostage about where he was held. But then the answer is, “I didn’t look.” —— And this would make no sense.
hmmmm…. I did really mean to get back to gambling.
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07.08.08
Posted in argumentation, epistemology, mind, philosophy, wittgenstein at 3:16 pm by nogre
Justified true belief does not yield knowledge, and everyone should know this by now. Beyond Gettier’s argument, is this tack I heard given by Jaakko Hintikka:
You may believe something, fine, and have whatever justifications you wish. But how do you know the thing is true?
The point he was making was that far beyond the issue of problems in having the right sort of justifications is the problem of having truth as well. Whenever the Justified-true-belief scheme is used for knowledge the truth of the thing in question is whitewashed over: all the focus is put on the justification and the truth is assumed to exist separately.
For example if I make a claim P, then I clearly believe P, I will need to give justifications x, y, z, etc., and P needs to be true for me to count P to be part of my knowledge. The first two conditions are easy enough for me to demonstrate according to some standards, even if skepticism is still an issue. However, I, nor anyone else, has any ability to demonstrate the truth of P in ways over and above whatever I have given as my justification. Therefore Justified-true-belief reduces to Justified-belief, which no one accepts as knowledge.
Between this argument and Gettier, I see the Justified-true-belief scheme of knowledge as beyond saving. To recover some sense of knowledge, we can focus on this idea:
If you know something, then it is not possible to be mistaken.
There are two ways of dealing with this conditional. First, you can make your definition of what it is to know something always correspond with whatever you cannot be mistaken about. Besides being ad hoc, this sliding scale for knowledge does not correspond very well with what we generally take to be knowledge.
Secondly, we can make what it is not possible to be mistaken about correspond to our knowledge. Although you have already called foul, hear me out. If you were to find out certain things were wrong you might start to doubt your own sanity. For example if you were to find out all the basic things you ‘know’ were wrong – there is no such place as the United States, water is not comprised of oxygen and hydrogen, subjects and verbs are one and the same, you are currently not reading, etc., – you would have reason to worry (at least I would).
Therefore I suggest that knowledge is comprised of things that if they were to be false, then we would not be able to claim we were sane. This definition makes a distinction between things we can be mistaken about and things we cannot be mistaken about. To be mistaken about this second type of thing would entail an unacceptable consequence: if you are insane then you cannot claim to have knowledge.
Is this ad hoc, as above? No, because the definition of what would classify you as insane does not refer to knowledge specifically. For example take the statement, “If x, y and z are false then I am crazy.” No mention of knowledge whatsoever. Therefore this definition is not ad hoc.
Does this definition of knowledge correspond to our intuitions? Very much so: it is based specifically upon the everyday experiences we have and our most established theories of the world.
What about skepticism: can’t we always be mistaken? The skeptic here is asking us to imagine the unimaginable. If we do as the skeptic asks, then we would be required to imagine ourselves to be insane and tell the skeptic what we think as insane people. I can’t do this- I don’t even have a guess as to how to go about trying to do this.
In the end you are wagering your sanity in order to have a claim to knowledge. However, there is no danger in this bet because you hold all the cards: you know what you can imagine to be different. Therefore you gain a theory of knowledge and lose nothing.
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03.18.08
Posted in biology, ethics, evolution, fitness, mind, philosophy, technology at 9:47 pm by nogre
The only ways to enhance the mind is to learn or evolve. Since evolution is out of our hands, all that is left is to learn.
Drugs that purport psychopharmacological enhancement do not do what their name states: they may change certain psychological factors but there is no drug that will make you smarter. This would be to eat from the tree of knowledge.
However drugs may be able to let you do things that you were unable previously, but this is nothing mysterious. If you do not breath enough oxygen, you will not be able to run. You get enough oxygen, you will be able to do more things. Now is oxygen a performance enhancing drug? It depends: the World Anti-Doping Agency recently ruled on oxygen tents (tents that vary the amount of oxygen inside) because using these tents can affect red blood cell counts. This example illustrates two things: that there is nothing inherently special about any particular chemical, be it oxygen or a newfangled drug, and secondly, that drugs only affect intermediary situations, not the final outcome.
The first point is that there is no moral dimension associated with the chemicals themselves. If it is possible to use the most fundamental of chemicals required for our survival in a way that could be seen as inappropriate, then any other chemical could be equally accused. If any chemical can be equally accused, then there is nothing unique about any individual chemical that makes its use morally wrong.
The second point is that drugs only have a specific range of effects. In the above example, the oxygen tents affect red blood cell count. An increased red blood cell count can be used to boost endurance, but this benefit will only appear under certain situations. The tents themselves do not increase endurance: they merely increase red blood cells. If a different drug was consumed to weaken the muscles, then the two ‘drugs’ would counteract each other and there would be no change in ability. Therefore it is not a drug that gives people an ability, such as endurance, but a drug may change how an ability is expressed.
The question is (and always was), “What do you want?” Since drugs have no moral dimension nor imbue the user with unknown (super-human) ability, the only issue is of fair play. Fair play in terms of other people and with your own goals. If you want to be able to lift heavy things, then you can use a machine, you can use drugs or you can work hard. Using a machine or drugs is to use someone else’s technology to assist whatever ability you have. If you use discipline to achieve the same results, then the technology that is being used is your own. Therefore if you are trying to play fair with others, then you have to ensure everyone has access to the same technology, be it machine or drug. If you are trying to achieve something yourself, then only you know whether or not using drugs makes a difference.
As we learn what is safe(r), we are going to have a fun future. Nothing changes our natural born ability or the hard work we have put in, but that has never stopped us from trying. Better drugs are on the way and this means options will be open to us that weren’t possible in the past. Good luck, be safe, have fun.
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03.02.08
Posted in metaphysics, mind, philosophy, science, technology at 4:24 pm by nogre
This interview with Hubert Dreyfus (just the parts about computers: part 1, part 2. via Continental Philosophy) briefly outlines one of the major criticisms leveled against artificial intelligence: computers will never be intelligent because our intelligence is based upon our physical interactions in and with the world. Very briefly, our intelligence is fundamentally tied to our bodies because it is only through our bodies do we have any interaction with the world. If we separate our intelligence from the body, as in the case with computers, then whatever it is that the computer has, it is not intelligence because intelligence only refers to how to bodily interact with the world.
As Dreyfus says this problem is attributed to a Merleau-Ponty extension of Heidegger and the only proposed solution is to embody computers by providing them with a full representation of world and body. I don’t think there is generally much faith in this solution; I certainly don’t have much faith in it.
However, this bodily criticism is a straw man. Computers have ‘bodies,’ they are definitely physical things in the world. But what of the physical interactions required for intelligence? Computers interact with the world: computers are affected by heat, moisture, dirt, vibration, etcetera. The only differences are the actual interactions that computers have as compared to humans: we experience humidity one way and they experience it differently. So yes, computers will have different interactions and hence they will never have the same intelligence that we have, but that does not imply that computers cannot have an embodied intelligence. It only means that computer embodied intelligence will be significantly different than our own intelligence. Therefore the above argument against computer intelligence only applies to those people who are trying to replicate perfect human intelligence and does nothing against people trying to create intelligence in computers.
For example, light-skinned and dark-skinned people have very slightly different physiologies. Now I see the above argument as saying that someone of different skin color cannot have the same sort of intelligence that you have because their interactions with the world are inherently different. Sure, everyone experiences things slightly differently due to having different bodies, but to claim that this creates incompatible intelligences is obviously wrong: No one on the face of the earth would be able to communicate with each other due to everyone being physically unique. Computers may be physically different to a greater extent, but this does not impact intelligence.
The criticism of computer intelligence based upon the need for a body is no more than subtle techno-racism.
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02.26.08
Posted in metaphysics, mind, philosophy, religion, science at 11:27 pm by nogre
I have written an article entitled “Occlumency.” Occlumency, for those of us without intimate knowledge of the world of Harry Potter, is the skill that seals the mind against magical intrusion and influence. No, I have no magical ability, but thanks to my metaphysics some skills not previously included in the human repertoire can now be accessed and explained: The paper’s aim is to teach the reader how to metaphysically seal the mind against certain kinds of intrusion and influence.
I have had some very positive feedback from the few I’ve already shown it to, and more is welcome. No special knowledge required, though I suggest reading the Harry Potter books anyway.
Here’s the PDF, with nice LaTeX formatting.
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02.08.08
Posted in metaphysics, mind, philosophy at 4:21 pm by nogre
After Buddha was dead, his shadow was still shown for centuries in a cave–a tremendous, gruesome shadow. God is dead: but given the way of men there may still be caves for thousands of years in which his shadow will be shown.–And we–we still have to vanquish his shadow, too.
~F. N.
If want to study the mind, we believed that we needed to understand intentionality:
Intentionality is the power of minds to be about, to represent, or to stand for, things, properties and states of affairs. –SEP
However intentionality is nowhere to be found. Intentionality is supposed to give us everything, it is the power of the mind, but in giving us everything, it itself is nothing.
These are the cases:
- Intentionality is the mark of all mental states.
- Intentionality is the mark of some mental states.
If intentionality exists in every mental activities, it’s then on par with ‘It’s raining or it’s not raining,’ and just as vacuous: any and every mental activity would be intentional implying that ‘mental activity’ = ‘intentional activity’. It is a distinction without a difference.
On the other hand allow for some mental things being intentional and other mental things not being intentional, i.e. the intentional is a subset of some greater mental activity. Then we’ve conceded that we aren’t asking about what we are or how we do what we do, but labeling a subset. I’m all for getting things labeled correctly, but we’ve thrown out the baby with the bathwater.
Intentionality is dead. Whatever use we have gotten out of it in the past we should be thankful for but it is time to move on.
Long live Commitment
I stated in my metaphysics that conscious things make commitments. We are committed to doing certain things at certain times and other things at other time because of other commitments we have made. If we are committed to remembering someone’s birthday, then we take steps to ensure that we know what time of year that person was born. If these steps include some power of the mind ‘to be about, to represent, or to stand for, things, properties and states of affairs,’ so be it, but all these things are secondary to the commitment initially made.
Some may call foul at this point: The objection to intentionality above applies to commitment and hence I am not practicing what I preach. If everything is a commitment then commitment is just as vacuous a concept as intentionality was accused of being.
Yes commitment is fundamental and hence may appear vacuous to some, but commitment comes with an internal structure that intentionality lacks. Intentionality is a power of the mind. Powers lack any internal structure: they act without having a more fundamental thing causing them to act, else that thing would be the power.
Say I am committed to my friends’ happiness and because of this commitment I send them cards on holidays. Commitments allow for structured derivative commitments, e.g. being committed to my friends’ happiness means I am committed to sending out letters and a commitment to sending out letters means a commitment to remembering and recording addresses. This food chain of commitments that is created, where the smaller commitments become part of bigger commitments which are part of even bigger commitments (with all sorts of interrelations between chains), gives us plenty of relations to investigate. Therefore it is true that analyzing a single commitment alone will get you no nowhere (e.g. analyzing a commitment to recording addresses) but analyzing groups of commitments will be far from vacuous.
Understanding ourselves and how we do what we do requires us to have a perspective on commitment, which I’ve discussed in briefly in my metaphysics. As meager an analysis as I am currently able to provide, it is still more than I felt we had before. Commitments determine our perspectives on certain situations and our perspectives likewise determine our commitments. Through analysis of our commitments and our perspective on things, we can understand how and why we do what we do. I don’t mean this to be a merely theoretical point but a practical one as well: we try to accomplish different things for specific reasons and when asked, we are able to give those reasons. Sometimes we have to preface our explanations with a description of how we perceived the situation to justify actions that seem unreasonable in hindsight, but this is all part of how we actually do and explain things.
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02.06.08
Posted in logic, metaphysics, mind, philosophy at 12:22 pm by nogre
Aaron Cotnoir has suggested that people think that paradoxes are meaningless. I think they are lucky that they hadn’t suggested that to me unless they wanted to see me freak out.
It was my good fortune to have my first real exposure to the work of Frege, Russell and Wittgenstein be from Thomas Ricketts. I can’t remember verbatim what he said, but this is close:
No one knows how long it took Frege to understand what Russell had written in his letter (Russell’s Paradox), be it a few seconds, a minute, ten minutes or a few hours. But we do know that at that moment his entire universe collapsed.
Only out of gross ignorance of history can anyone believe that paradoxes are meaningless. Frege’s project up until Russell came along and spoiled everything was, at least in part, to give a firm foundation for mathematics based solely upon logic. With just a few laws coupled with his newfound quantification he was able to provide a seemingly consistent theory and then also provide sophisticated philosophy of language to bolster his views.
There was probably a moment when Frege allowed himself to dare to think he’d solved one of the greatest mysteries of the universe. Not only had he legitimately and demonstrably changed mathematics forever, but the ramifications of his theory were obviously far-reaching into philosophy and science. Then Russell sent him that letter that struck at the very axioms of his theory. It was a jugular shot and I can’t see Frege feeling other than like all the blood had been drained from his body. Everything he had worked for was put in jeopardy.
So if anyone believes that paradoxes are meaningless, I suggest to go read some history. Paradoxes can destroy. Any theory that comes along and says paradoxes are meaningless, is garbage.
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01.29.08
Posted in Relativity, logic, metaphysics, mind, ontology, philosophy, religion, science, wittgenstein at 12:16 am by nogre
I didn’t think I’d be able to write this at all and I am still surprised now. It was only a few weeks ago that I had believed that it could be up to three years before anything would have been started. That said, I can’t speak much for the quality of the work. My own naiveté and lack of scholarship leads me to think that better people have long dismissed the few ideas that I have presented here. Still, in my defense, what I do present is what I sincerely believe and if there is nothing new here, then I at least have accomplished stating with whom I agree.
Writing this has made me feel more free than perhaps anything else in my life. All criticism is welcome.
Metaphysics 1
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