09.24.09
Posted in epistemology, philosophy, wittgenstein at 11:32 pm by nogre
Today I was in a shop and a young mother came in with her stroller and a handbag with an image of a sleeping rabbit in a forest of mushrooms. The rabbit had a thought bubble that read, “A rabbit in a forest of mushrooms.”
I told her I liked the bag… I don’t think she realized that it had reminded me of the last paragraph of Wittgenstein’s On Certainty:
676. “But even if in such cases I can’t be mistaken, isn’t it possible that I am drugged?” If I am and if the drug has taken away my consciousness, then I am not now really talking and thinking. I cannot seriously suppose that I am at this moment dreaming. Someone who, dreaming, says “I am dreaming”, even if he speaks audibly in doing so, is no more right than if he said in his dream “it is raining”, while it was in fact raining. Even if his dream were actually connected with the noise of the rain.
The rabbit had created a visible dream-thought bubble that had correctly identified his actual situation, though the rabbit was asleep.
Does the rabbit’s dream-thought count as justified true belief? It may well be justified because the rabbit could be observing it’s surroundings within the dream (and those images could be connected to reality through memory), it is apparently true, and the rabbit believes it (according to the rules of thought bubble attribution). So the dream-thought of the rabbit seems to qualify as Justified-True-Belief, but I don’t believe we normally count dream-thoughts as knowledge.
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04.26.09
Posted in epistemology, metaphysics, ontology, philosophy, wittgenstein at 7:27 pm by nogre
Of late I’ve become increasingly concerned with the meaning of identity. When we say, ‘x = x,’ we don’t mean that the x on the left is exactly identical to the x on the right because the x on the left is just that, on the left, and the x on the right is on the right, not the left. Since equality would be useless without having 2 different objects (try to imagine the use of a reflexive identity symbol, i.e., one that for whatever object it is applies to, indicates that the object is identical with itself), there is something mysterious about the use of identity.
But what is the mystery? It cannot be anything to do with the subjects being declared identical: these objects are arbitrary to the particular topic being discussed. For example if I say ‘the morning star = the evening star’ then we are talking about planets, and if I say that ‘3 = y’ then I am talking about numbers. The identity sign is the same in both, even though the objects being discussed are rather different.
It is easy enough to believe that by paying attention to the different objects being declared identical we can know how to act (some sort of context principle *cringe*). But this doesn’t address the question specifically: although we can know how to use the identity symbol in specific instances, this tells us nothing about how identity works or what it means.
Take a look at this:
 |
= |
|
The picture is the same save for location on the webpage.
———–
But what if we call the one on the left a duck and the one on the right a rabbit: what is different? The features obviously don’t change, only the way we are seeing (perceiving? apprehending? looking at? interpreting?) the two images.
(Triple bonus points to anyone who can look at the two pictures at once and see one as a duck and the other as a rabbit. Hint- it is easier for me to do it if I try to see the one on the left as a rabbit and the one on the right as a duck… focus on the mouths.)
In this example, as opposed to the others discussed above, a decision was required to be made – to see one picture one way and the other another way – before the differences even existed. Now, in the above examples it appeared that there was a difference of knowledge: at one point we didn’t know that the evening star and morning star were one and the same, or that y was equal to 3. This isn’t the case when looking at identical duckrabbit pictures because there is nothing about the two pictures that is different; the difference is entirely in the mind.
Let me make a suggestion about how to describe the phenomenon of being able to see one image two different ways: the image can be instantiated in two different ways, i.e. it has an associated universe with a population of two. There are two possible descriptions associated with this image and until we make a decision about how to describe it, the image is like an uninstantiated formula.
Identity, then, is an indication that the two associated objects are things that can be generalized to the same formula. The picture of the duck and the picture of the rabbit can be called identical because they both have a single general formula (the duckrabbit picture) that can be instantiated into either. The identity symbol indicates that the two associated objects are two instantiations of the same general thing, be it a number, planet or image (but not objects in space-time because that would be self-contradictory… space-time and instantiation, a topic for another day).
How identity works can now be identified: it is to instantiate and generalize. Consider the mystery of how we see the duckrabbit one way or the other: no one can tell you how you are able to see the image one way or the other. However, you are able to instantiate the image in one way and then another, and recognize that both the duck and rabbit are shown by the same image.
Instantiation and generalization are skills and the identity symbol between the two images above indicates that you have to use that skill to generalized both to one formula. Most of the time it is non-trivial to instantiate or generalize in order to show two things (formulas) to be equal. In the case of the duckrabbit it is trivial because the work went into the instantiation process (to see the images one way or the other); in the other examples the situation is reversed, such that we had the instantiations but not the general formula. In all cases, though, only when we can go back and forth between different instantiations and a single generalization do we claim two things identical.
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03.02.09
Posted in ethics, internet, philosophy, science, wittgenstein at 3:01 am by nogre
… Another alternative would have been to give you what’s called a popular scientific lecture, that is a lecture intended to make you believe that you understand a thing which actually you don’t understand, and to gratify what I believe to be one of the lowest desires of modern people, namely the superficial curiosity about the latest discoveries of science.
This quote is from the beginning of Wittgenstein’s “A Lecture on Ethics” or whatever the untitled transcript of the talk he gave to The Heretics Society is called. I’ve seen this part of the lecture omitted; admittedly it has little to do with his later arguments. However, I always felt that this barb was something interesting.
The quote has little force as an argument: it is merely his opinion that a superficial curiosity about the latest discoveries of science is bad. No contradictions or other nonsense is pointed out, nor does it even evoke a parallel between those he is disparaging and some accepted foul thing.
But it is clear, concise and otherwise totally unlike everything else that Wittgenstein is known for, while touching upon the topics of belief, understanding, science, and desire. Odd, no?
What the quote is, is a smear; it is an insult: Calling something a lowest desire, without reason, is merely to insult it. What’s going on here?
Say I have a superficial curiosity about the latest discoveries of science. So what? If the latest scientific research has little to do with my profession, say I’m a restaurateur, then what harm is there in having a passing interest in what other smart people do? It might even be considered commendable that I make such an effort.
Now Wittgenstein is saying that my earnest effort is nowhere near commendable, but all the way at the bottom, the basest, of desire. Since he accusing “modern people” it is not just ‘me’, but everyone. This is insulting and unwarranted.
However, this isn’t exactly what Wittgenstein was after: he disliked superficial curiosity in scientific discoveries not because of the impulse of people to learn and take interest in others, but because it made people believe that they understood a thing which actually they didn’t understand. Understanding difficult things is an accomplishment, and scientific research is difficult. In enjoying a superficial curiosity about the latest discoveries of science, he is accusing us of feeling a sense of accomplishment when we have done nothing to merit it: he is accusing us of mental masturbation. Ouch.
We can also now understand why this criticism is “modern”. Before modern times, there was no way to have a “popular scientific lecture”: only in the last century or so have we had the communications technology and an available public which allows for such a thing. You couldn’t expect feudal peasants to leave their farms or be educated enough to appreciate such a lecture. But by November 1929, the date of this lecture, mass media was in full swing with the wide distribution of newspapers and books, and the start of national radio broadcasts. Only with widespread media distribution did the danger of popular science becoming a narcotic exist.
Wittgenstein saw that with the modern increase in information distribution capability came a danger of intellectual drugging of the population. It disgusted him that people would take pleasure from the feeling that they understood difficult theories with which they only had the most superficial engagement. Unfortunately he had no argument or solution to prevent this, and so he resorted, as we all do when we are out of good arguments, to insults.
One can only think that the internet has made this an even more pervasive problem. It blows our information distribution capability off the charts. And we are, unsurprisingly, completely addicted to it. It’s too bad dear Ludwig never really commented more on modernity, he seems to have been rather perceptive.
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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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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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Posted in Relativity, metaphysics, mind, philosophy, religion, science, wittgenstein at 12:07 am by nogre
1 Ontology
1.1 The Cogito
“… I must finally conclude that the proposition, I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind.” – R.D.
There are three things most should agree upon1
in light of this statement:
- When something is put forward or conceived, it is not possible to deny that something is doing the putting forward or conceiving.
- When something is put forward or conceived, it is not possible to deny that putting forward or conceiving exists.
- When something is put forward or conceived, it is not possible to deny that there is something put forward or conceived.
Simply put, there are things that conceive which I will refer to as consciousness, there is the subject of the consciousness which I will refer to as matter, and there is how consciousness describes the matter, which I will refer to as description. These are the three things that exist upon reflection, always.
1.2 Substance
“If the true is what is grounded, then the ground is not true, nor yet false.” – L.W.2
To analyze consciousness, matter and description, the analysis must be done in terms at least as fundamental as consciousness, matter or description. The only things as fundamental as consciousness, matter or description are consciousness, matter and description: these three are the only things that cannot be denied.
One option remaining is to analyze consciousness, matter and description in terms of each other. However, analysis of fundamental things in terms of each other leads to unexpected results. If matter and description are studied as functions of consciousness, then consciousness becomes neither describable nor indescribable and neither material nor immaterial. If matter and consciousness are regarded as descriptions, then description is neither alive nor dead and is neither material nor immaterial. If consciousness and description are functions of matter, then matter is neither alive nor dead and is neither describable nor indescribable. Therefore it is not possible to treat one of the three as more fundamental than the others without severe consequences.
In light of the results of the above discussion, all three are to be understood equally as substance. The three substances are consciousness, matter and description.
2 Explanation
With no one fundamental substance how is explanation possible?
2.1 Relativity
Relativity means there is no preferential perspective for the description of natural phenomena: each of us has a location as good as everyone else’s when it comes to describing the physical world. Relativity is applicable to substance as well: there is no preferential ontological perspective for substance and hence any understanding of substance is a legitimate place to begin analysis of substance. Anyone may consider the arguments from Section 1 regardless of prior ontological commitments.
Though I believe substance relativity to be self evident, a few words of support may be given. Consider the case if it were not true, i.e. there were preferential ontological situations, access to certain substances, that enabled those with access to have special insight to the mysteries of the world. People without this special access would have no way to gain it unless they were somehow given access by someone who had it; it would be undiscoverable. However, since we are investigating that which is common to everyone, as stated in Section 1.1, this is not the case and hence substance is relative.
2.2 Perspective
Relativity also means that the onlooker’s perspective has to be taken into account when describing natural phenomena: motion means motion relative to the agent describing the situation. When studying substance no one is free of ontological commitments and these need to be accounted for (just as any motion of the onlooker needs to be accounted for in physics). At any given point it is possible to be looking at a situation from the perspective of consciousness, matter or description.
For example take the question, “Does the sun shine?” From the perspective of consciousness, the answer is no: the sun is not conscious and hence it doesn’t do anything. From the perspective of matter the answer is yes: the ball of matter called the sun radiates photons, and radiating photons is shining. From the perspective of description the answer is possibly sometimes: when the sun is conceived of as shining, then it is shines.3
Whichever of the three ontological commitments is being appealed to will dictate the answer or explanation received. No one is beholden to any particular substance and can change ontological commitments in an instant, as long as the requirements of Section 1.2 are met, which does mean that there may be more than one `correct’ answer for a given question. This does not mean that all the answers are equal: saying `If you say it does,’ may be technically correct from the descriptive perspective, but many times only an answer from the other perspectives is accepted (or advised).
3 Instances
In physics, motions and locations are determined by perspective; what is determined by perspective in substance?
3.1 Commitment
As mentioned in the previous section ontological commitment determines what the explanation or answer that is given to a question. Making a commitment is an activity that only a conscious thing can do. Moreover:
- If something is put forward or conceived, then something committed to putting that thing forward or conceiving it.
If this is false, then something was put forward and nothing committed to putting that thing forward; it was put forward or conceived without some conscious thing committing to having done so. If this was done without the commitment of the conscious thing, then it was not put forward: only conscious things can put things forward or conceive of things. Therefore all conscious things that put forward or conceive of things make commitments.
Commitments and perspective are relative to each other: perspective depends upon what commitments are held, and perspective determines what those commitments are. For example if I am committed to one person then my perspective on other people will no longer include those people for a variety of activities. If my perspective is that monogamy is unrealistic, then a commitment to one person is likewise unrealistic.
3.2 Things
The things that exist are determined by perspective too. Depending upon available information and theory, different perspectives on what sort of things make up this world can be presented. Life, death, dogs, personality, atoms, words, food, pain, etc. Whatever can be put forth as a subject of the consciousness is a thing. No thing is `wrong’ in the sense that it is the subject of a consciousness.
Things and perspective are relative to each other: perspective determines what sort of things populate the world, and the things that populate the world determine perspective. Until the discovery of the subatomic particle, many people believed that the atom was the smallest building block of the universe. The discovery of a new kind of thing forced people to change their perspective on what the universe was made of. Conversely, if I have had a few too many unexplainable experiences then my perspective might allow for things like ghosts without me ever having witnessed one.
3.3 Meaning
The meanings of our descriptions are determined by perspective. You can pick your own examples of the meaning of a sentence meaning something different depending on perspective, but Rodney Dangerfield provides classics:
A girl phoned me the other day and said… Come on over, there’s nobody home. I went over. Nobody was home.
Rodney’s perspective caused him to believe the sentence to mean something other than the literal meaning, which was exactly what the girl intended. Conversely, if a rosy picture is painted, then this description is meant to determine the perspective taken on the situation.
Meaning and perspective are relative to each other: perspective determines what descriptions mean and what our descriptions mean determine our perspectives.
Footnotes:
1The statement, “Something happened or something did not happen,” is also always true. If people object to the use of the Cogito, perhaps this sentence will provide a sufficient alternative. Other tautologies (It’s raining or it is not raining) introduce something new (rain) and hence are not as fundamental.
2Wittgenstein, L. On Certainty #205
3“Will the Giants win the Superbowl?” Consciousness and matter are silent. This question asks what you can conceive and hence is purely descriptive. Unfortunately it is looking like this is as likely as conceiving a round square. Go Eli!
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12.06.07
Posted in biology, evolution, logic, measurement, philosophy, science, time, wittgenstein at 4:05 pm by nogre
In my biorelativity series I used mutations per generation as a measurement of distance. However, with my recent historical/generative musings, specifically the post on the logical foundations of biorelativity (the logic of which is at the foundation of how I arrived at biorelativity), I fear I may have ignored the distinction between a mutation and an adaptation.
Consider an organism with some feature. The feature can be considered both a mutation or an adaptation depending on what the organism is being compared to. If the organism is being compared to another organism, then the feature is likely to be called a mutation. If the organism is being discussed in reference to the ecosystem, then the feature will be referred to as an adaptation.
Now I am sure that there may be some technical properties/definitions having to do with genetics or whatnot that distinguish mutation and adaptation. This is not my concern, though, because in my arguments the two can be used interchangeably.
What does concern me is that there are different sets of related concepts associated with the two words. An adaptation is, to my ear, always a positive thing. A mutation can be good or bad, e.g. mutant freak. By this line of thought adaptations are useful mutations, a subset.
Since mutation is the measurement of time and adaptation is only those mutations which are useful, then we can use adaptation to signify the forward motion of biological time (and forward change of a species as adaptations per generation) which will almost always be what people are discussing (“as time marches on, as things adapt…”). Conversely, to describe biological time going backwards, we could say something like ‘unmutating’.
——
On a slightly different note it is interesting that that there is no word for adapting in the opposite direction: it’s a significant gap. Unadapting? This could imply mere stagnation; the idea here is to think of what it would mean to be adapting in a way to specifically undo previous adaptations. I think a word like this does not nor cannot meaningfully exist: the logical/grammatical structure of adaptation presupposes forward progress.
Consider, “If there were a verb meaning ‘to believe falsely’, it would not have any significant first person present indicative.” (Philosophical Investigations Part II Section x)
“The species is currently *counteradapting*” — It just makes no sense.
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