This was originally intended as a brief reply to the comment by William J Murray but it sort of grew into something a little longer so I thought, since everyone else is doing it, I’d put it up here.
William J Murray:
I think that any fair reading of UD will show that the vast majority of pro-ID posters there, and certainly the moderators and subject contributors, are not “anti-science” at all, nor “sneer” at science; rather, they have what is IMO a legitimate concern over the anti-religious, anti-theist, pro-materialist agenda that many of those currently in positions of power in the institutions of science blatantly demonstrate.
I would agree that not all contributors to UD are anti-science but there is, nonetheless, a prominent strand of such thinking there. Many of the original posts mock the speculative excesses of evolutionary psyschology, for example, or seem to gloat over instances of where science has apparently got it wrong. Those occasions where the author of such comments has got it wrong themselves pass largely unremarked. The overall impression is of an anti-science advocacy site.
I will grant that there are a few contributors to UD who are critical of the perceived atheist/materialist stance of many scientists in public fora as improper because it associates science with atheism. They hold, as I do, that the most science can say on such questions is that, following Laplace, it has found no need for such hypotheses thus far. While it may be true that a majority of scientists hold atheistic views it is misleading to suggest that they are endorsed by science as a whole.
That said, my impression of UD is that the majority of contributors are critical of science because they believe it is hostile and threat to their religion. They feel that science is perceived as a source of knowledge that is more reliable and authoritative than that offered by the various faiths which is thereby undermined. One slightly amusing response is the attempt to cast science as just another religion. Those who do so seem to be oblivious to the contradiction: on the one hand, religion is presented as a way of knowing that is fully the equal of science, on the other hand, the authority of science is supposed to be undermined by calling it just another religion, implying that religion is a lesser form of knowledge and science is to be dragged down to that level. Unfortunately, much as they would like to, they can’t have it both ways
There is without doubt a very vocal group of scientists and advocates of science who believe that it does make religious beliefs untenable They highlight the harm that has been done – and is still being done – in the name of the various faiths as evidence that we would all be better off without it. My own view is that this is reactionary and most prominent in the United States. It is a response to the extreme hostility felt by many Americans towards any form of non-belief and the excessive influence of such religious beliefs on the society and politics of that country.
My own view is that it is true that, over the millennia, a great deal of blood has been spilled in the name of various religions. It is also true that huge numbers have been killed in the name of the various political ideologies, which were in some cases atheistic, that gained power in the twentieth century. I would argue that it is further true that trying to compare body counts is a pointless distraction. The real lesson to be taken is the dangers of absolutist thinking.
In spite of the posturing and boastfulness of some, we are mostly well aware of our own weakness and vulnerability. Instinctively, we crave the kind of reliable knowledge about the world in which we find ourselves that will give us a good handle on it and increase our chances of survival. We are all too easily seduced by anyone or any belief system which appears to offer such certainty, especially in times of heightened insecurity. The danger is that, once convinced of the absolute truth of such beliefs, there are some who will have no doubt that they are fully justified in doing almost anything to defend and promote such them. Thus we have the spectacle of William Lane Craig apparently feeling compelled to defend and justify the massacring of children, even though I have no doubt it is something he would never do himself, because it is something reported in his Bible as being required of believers and approved by his God.
Thus we come back to Oliver Cromwell’s impassioned plea, used as the motto for this blog:
I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken.
William J Murray,
No, that is not the robot’s purpose, that’s your purpose for the robot.
I said: “1) It is based on the assumption that you can know something that you have already concluded you cannot know.”
You asked: “What is that?”
Facepalm.
The assumption: moral statement x is self-evidently true
The incompatible conclusion: humans cannot know which statements are self-evidently true.
WJM: “I haven’t attempted to establish any such thing”
No, you are absolutely right: you really haven’t. So my point that X is invalid clearly stands. And both your X and your Y, which is already self-contradictory all on its own, and now receives the death-blow from the invalidation of its prerequisite X, silently crumble into nothingness.
Uhm, unfortunately for you, your Wikipedia snippet on dualism does not say ANYTHING about *objective* existence of a mind. And whether one believes that the mind is a separate entity from the body or not (i.e. whether dualism is true or not) has absolutely no bearing on whether that makes any of its traits and functions *objective* or *subjective*.
“IF we assume that Y is true, then the dictionary must be wrong”
WHAT? It’s hard to believe you just said that and expect anyone to accept this as a rational, coherent, valid argument….
“the dictionary must be wrong (to some degree) about what mind (and by inclusive extension, purpose) are in its definition of the term “subjective”.”
Wow. Okay. So the dictionary is wrong. Subjective doesn’t mean what people think it means. Neither does mind or purpose. We’ve been doing English wrong all this time! (you obviously don’t realize: in a language, words mean what we AGREE upon that they mean; and these agreed upon meanings are written down in dictionaries; if people mean something different than what an agreed upon word means, they use a different word, so that other people can understand what they mean). So humor me: what IS, in your personal dictionary, the meaning of subjective, objective, mind, and purpose?
I’m not following you. Where did I conclude that humans cannot know which statements are self-evidently true? Where did anyone conclude that?
Dictionaries do not provide comprehensive understanding of conceptual terms and phrases, especially as they are used in particular branches of study and research, such as philosophy.
Using definitional fiat to assert that the mind and everything held or experienced in it “is” subjective in the face of thousands of years and ongoing philosophical debate (especially per monism vs dualism) only avoids the argument at hand. I think that many aspects of what goes on in our mind is subjective, but obviously I’m making the hypothetical case that there are some aspects of mind that are not (hypothetically) subjective.
It’s not as if I’m tendering a wildly novel idea; this philosophical debate has been going on for thousands of years. You react as if I’m positing something far outside of the philosophical mainstream; I’m not. These arguments are fairly standard theological and philosophical arguments about the nature of mind, ideal forms, morality, purpose and the nature of god.
All of that doesn’t get wiped out by pointing to a dictionary.com definition of what “subjective” means.
That is the clear implication of the following quote, which I repeat here:
Are you unaware of thousands of years of philosophical debate about the nature of mind? Substance and property dualists have long argued that what we call “mind” is in itself an objectively existent phenomena of an immaterial nature. Plato argued that only the mind can gather real knowledge of Ideal Forms that governed (generally) how phenomena in the physical world manifested, and that knowledge of the physical was just knowledge of the shadows cast on the wall of the cave.
You can find some good information about dualism at:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dualism/#SubDua
No, WJM, I am not using definitional fiat. Not even close. I am using the commonly used understanding – *philosophical* understanding – of the word subjective. This definition is what I was using all along for all my arguments and claims. Under this definition, “something that lies in a mind”, including purposes, ARE subjective. They cannot be otherwise. That is what I mean every time I am using the word subjective. Using a word in this kind of manner is called making a coherent, consistent argument. That’s what definitions are for: to distinguish between what a particular word encompasses, and what it does not encompass, for the purpose of conveying meaning.
If someone is using a word under a different definition than the commonly agreed upon one, they are under the obligation to clearly say so and define their terminology. There are plenty of participants in plenty of ancient philosophical debates who either use words in the conventional sense or under clear definitions of their own, and come to coherent, consistent and valid conclusions. Those are the philosophers I find worthwhile reading. And then there are plenty of participants who use lots of equivocation, obfuscation and ambiguity, and come to completely meaningless conclusions.
So, if you insist that what I and most of the world’s English speakers understand the word *subjective* to mean, is not what you think it should mean, then you are under the obligation to provide a clear definition of the term how YOU are using it. Otherwise your arguments are completely meaningless to me and to anyone who shares my understanding of what the word *subjective* refers to.
So please give definitions of the words *subjective*, *purpose*, and *mind* for what YOU mean by them when you are using them.
I said: “unfortunately for you, your Wikipedia snippet on dualism does not say ANYTHING about *objective* existence of a mind”
You responded:
Once again: *independent* is not the same thing as *objective*, so that is obviously NOT the clear implication of the quote.
Unless you are using some private definition of *objective* again, that happens to mean the same thing as *independent*. If so, please say so, so we can have a coherent, meaningful discussion.
The validity or invalidity of dualism does not influence the *subjectivity* or *objectivity* of anything, according to the meaning of subjectivity and objectivity I use. Again, if you are using different definitions of these words than the commonly agreed upon ones found in dictionaries, you need to define them, so we can have a coherent discussion.
WJM: “I am not trying to support a claim of fact that humans **can** identify self-evidently true moral statements. I would never claim that it is a demonstrable fact that some moral statements are self-evidently true.”
IOW, you agree that you are unable to ever conclusively establish whether claim x actually may be a self-evident moral statement or not
WJM: “Your argument that Y is not true is irrelevant to the argument, because my argument (which is a hypothetical) begins with the premise that Y is true. Your argument that X is “actually” not true is again irrelevant, because whether or not X is “actually” true is irrelevant to the argument – unless you can show how X can be false and Y still true.”
This is pretty hilarious.
WJM: “My boat is the kind of boat that cannot have holes.”
madbat089: “Actually, look: your boat has a hole!”
WJM: “That is irrelevant to my worldview that I am in the kind of boat that cannot have holes.”
madbat089: “But your boat DOES have a hole. So your worldview is obviously flawed.
WJM: “blub blub blub…”
In effect, your worldview can recognize X is wrong, but not the reason why that would be.
I think this statement needs explaining as you have now completely lost me.
IOW, since this was the original question of mine…
“how could it be possible for me to have a purpose in my mind, and for me to not know that purpose?”
…your robot does not even qualify to answer the question. It cannot have a purpose in its mind because it doesn’t have a mind (unless you again use very private and peculiar definitions of *mind* and *robot*). The purpose that the robot has is external to it, it has been assigned to it by the mind of the person that made the robot.
It appears that WJM feels unable to define the terminology he is using for describing his moral worldview, and state said worldview in coherent, meaningful terms. So much for his “coherent, reasonably grounded” morality.
I’m satisfied with the current state of the debate and await further input from Dr. Liddle.
William J Murray,
How can you be happy when your part of the debate is in this state?
“In effect, your worldview can recognize X is wrong, but not the reason why that would be.”
Please explain.
WJM:
Really?
Here is the current state of the discussion:
1)
After I pointed out that anything that lies in a mind, including purposes, ARE inherently subjective, per the definition of the words, and consistent with the way I have been using these terms in the discussion, you objected that there might be a way one could define the words differently that would allow one to conclude that something lying in a mind COULD be objective. I asked you to provide these definitions that would allow you to make such a conclusion. You have not provided one. I must conclude then from your satisfaction with the current state of the discussion, that you are satisfied with the definitions and conclusions that have been reached: Purposes are inherently subjective, thus there can exist no self-evident moral statements.
2)
From these statements it follows that your worldview premise, whether discussed for hypothetical or practical purposes, is incoherent because it is based on the assumption that you can know something that you have already concluded you cannot know. Fine by me if you are satisfied with this conclusion.
Madbat,
No, I am not agreeing to your particular perspective and summation of the current state of the debate; I’m satisfied with the current state of the debate as I see it.
Ah. And how do you see it? Enlighten me where and why you disagree with my conclusions?
#1 is your reiteration of a definitional fiat. Already covered, and renders further argument untenable. While I agree that everything that is subjective is in the mind, I don’t agree that everything that is in the mind is subjective.
#2 You apparently don’t understand what “self-evidently true” means. It means “requires no support, argument, or evidence”. They are recognizable as true in and of themselves, which is why I would never try to argue or demonstrate them to be true or that humans can identify them.
You either identify/recognize/know a self-evidently true moral statement, or you don’t. Argument, evidence and demonstrations are non-sequiturs by account of the putative self-evident nature of the statement.
But that is where our subjectivity comes in.
As an example, two young women become pregnant.
One has an abortion, and one doesn’t.
The one that didn’t get an abortion, struggles to raise her one child.
The one that got an abortion, finished school, got married and had 3 children.
Is it self-evidently true that having more children is immoral if the event that allowed this to happen was an abortion?
Without context, you cannot consider morality at all.
That is why the concept of “self-evidently true statements” is flawed.
It would be flawed if someone had posited that ALL moral statements are self-evidently true. Elizabeth and I agreed upon ONE self-evidently true moral statement that we held to be true in all contexts and under any condition.
No. My argument contains nothing remotely resembling definitional fiat. What my argument does is use a definition of terms in a consistent, coherent manner. Contrary to your absurd assertion “already covered”, you have completely failed to even engage my argument. In your feeble and substance-free objection that one could define the terms differently, without actually PROVIDING such a different definition, you have covered exactly nothing. I have invited you to provide the alternative definition that you claim may support your argument, so we may both see whether this definition renders your argument meaningful and coherent, and what it would mean for my argument.
This statement of yours :”While I agree that everything that is subjective is in the mind, I don’t agree that everything that is in the mind is subjective.” is completely meaningless in a discussion where the term *subjective* is not clearly defined. You reject the dictionary definition I was using. Fine. Then PROVIDE the definition you want to use, so we can see what on earth you mean with this statement and how it affects all the other statements in both our arguments.
Ok. What you seem to be saying here is that self-evident statements are recognizable as true and by that virtue they are identified by some humans as true, but there is no reason whatsoever why they are true or why some humans can identify them?
So some humans recognize self-evident statements and some don’t. That brings us around to Toronto’s summary of your worldview:
“your worldview can recognize X is wrong, but not the reason why that would be.”
Some people may find statement X self-evidently true, some people may find a statement Y that is in conflict with statement X self-evidently true. Some other set of people may find that there are no self-evident statements at all. So, in order for you, as someone who finds statement X self-evidently true, to maintain that position in the face of these alternatives, you need to also maintain that you are, for no reason, privileged over the people that disagree with you, and happen to find statements self-evident that actually are self-evident.
In that case, I stand corrected. Your worldview premise, whether discussed for hypothetical or practical purposes, is incoherent because it is based on the assumption that you happen to know X to be true in the absence of any evidence that X could be true or that you could be capable of knowing this.
Since the principles of logic themselves must be held on an a priori, self-evidently true basis, one can hardly claim that a worldview is irrational if it holds a statement to be self-evidently true.
1) Is it self-evidently true that prostitution is immoral?
2) Is it self-evidently true that not supplying food to your children is immoral?
So do you choose prostitution or starving your children as your immoral behaviour?
I’ll go on record as saying there are **no** “self-evidently true moral statements”.
And so any argument that posits that there are self-evidently true moral statements shouldn’t concern you. I”m not trying to prove that there are; I’m arguing what wordlview warrants are necessary if there are.
I have been arguing for months here that IF self-evidently true moral statements exist, THEN some aspects of mind must be (1) universal and (2) objectively existent. This kind of substance dualism has been argued for thousands of years in philosophy. To insert a DEFINITION of subjectivity that implicates that everything in the mind is “subjective” as if by that definition alone thousands of years of debate about the nature of mind is resolved is the very essence of definitional fiat, or the logical fallacy of persuasive definition.
Either we move on with the argument, or it stalls out because you believe a dictionary.com definition conclusively solves the age-old mind/matter debate. If you don’t believe my use of the terms is common in such debates, I can’t help you and we probably don’t have enough common ground to communicate effectively.
Mind may or may not be a substance of some sort that may or may not have some objectively existent, universal features (like the physical world has some universal features like inertia and gravity). I’m not arguing that this **is** the case; I’m arguing that IF there are self-evidently true moral statements, THEN it must be the case that mind is of a substance dualist nature and has some universal, objectively-existent features.
I really don’t even know why you’ve inserted yourself into an argument where you apparently don’t even wish to posit the premise that has been posited for the sake of the argument.
So, let’s turn this around, and you answer the question at hand: IF there are self-evidently true moral statements, what worldview premises would warrant their existence?
Of course they concern me.
Those are the arguments I am arguing against.
It means that any arguments you offer up that rely on the existence of “self-evidently true moral statements”, are flawed.
This does not follow at all.
Typically when one says X is self-evidently true, one is appealing to intuition, not to logic. And what is self-evidently true to your intuition might be self-evidently false to somebody else.
I am very satisfied with the current state, which is why I have been mostly lurking.
On my assessment, the current state is that WJM has been going around in large circles, demonstrating nothing beyond his patience with presenting tedious arguments.
Yes, indeed, you have been arguing that. However, it is well understood that anything at all follows from assuming a false proposition.
Again, it is apparent that you don’t understand the nature of a hypothetical argument.
One can premise anything, even the untrue, the ridiculous and the absurd, and examine the logical consequnces thereof and the necessary worldview axioms for such a premise.
Obviously, I’m not appealing to logic to support the premise that a statement is self-evidently true. I was using the principles of logic as an example of self-evidently true statements one holds as true upon which they base rational worldviews.
Whether anyone else considers a particular moral statement **not** self-evidently true is entirely irrelevant to an argument that is premised on the agreement (between Elizabeth and I) that the statement is self-evidently true.
Not if one is applying logic; even a false proposition can produce logical (if untrue) inferences and conclusions. Since this argument is hypothetical and not attempting to demonstrate or argue a fact of reality, it doesn’t matter if the premise is completely false, because (once again) we’re investigating a hypothetical.
Again, you guys seem to be impervious to the point that this is an argument that stems from the hypothetical, a priori proposition that self-evidently true statements exist.
The perspective or argument that they do not exist is entirely irrelevant to this argument.
IF they exist, can a non-theistic worldview provide sufficient warrant/grounding for them to exist? Of course, the answer is no.
Only a theistic premise based upon substance dualism of mind can provide an objectively existent mental feature of universal human purpose (comparable to gravity, universal expansion or entropy in the physical world) that can result in the recognition of self-evidently true statements about what humans ought, and ought not, do.
I understand that you are using a “hypothetical argument” to arrive at a “non-hypothetical conclusion”.
Your conclusion is that theism is the only coherent worldview available to real human beings living in the real world, and your whole argument hinges on premises you can’t back up.
Who says that the principles of logic must be held true on a self-evident basis? On the contrary, I regard the principles of logic simply as a set of rules we humans have formulated, derived from observed patterns and regularities in chains of events and processes, to help us predict valid statements and outcomes. The principles of logic are in this sense the exact opposite of “self-evident”. They are supported by evidence – they are directly derived from experience: the experience what general patterns valid conclusions have in common as compared to invalid conclusions.
So, I don’t see how your comment is at all relevant to my point: Your worldview premise, whether discussed for hypothetical or practical purposes, is incoherent because it is based on the assumption that you happen to know X to be true in the absence of any evidence that X could be true or that you could be capable of knowing this.
In the case of logical principals, we have ample evidence for their validity and usefulness.
WJM was responding to my statement “However, it is well understood that anything at all follows from assuming a false proposition.”
Sorry, WJM, but you are mistaken. It is well known that a false proposition implies anything. Google for “false implies anything” to find a bunch of pages presenting the logical basis for this.
WHAT? How many times do I have to say it? In your cherished thousands of years of debate about the nature of mind only those people who have clearly defined their terms have come to any kind of meaningful, coherent conclusion! Do you disagree with this??? Just because lots of people have written volumes and volumes of equivocation about some topic does not make their existence any kind of an argument. What you are trying here sounds a lot like an argument from authority. You don’t like my definition? FINE. Let’s hear the one you would like to use then!
If I don’t believe your use of the term is common???? I have no idea what your use of the term is! You haven’t told me! The only thing you have told me is that you don’t like my use of the term. I have repeatedly asked you to provide a definition for your use of the term, so I can KNOW what your use of the term is! Is that so hard to understand or provide????
I am, quite obviously, arguing that both your premise, and your reasoning about a worldview premise that you think warrants the first premise, are flawed.
I can’t give any meaningful answer to this question because I find the concept of self-evidence to be incoherent. An incoherent premise doesn’t have any entailments that are coherent or intelligible to me.
And here is another one of the blatant inconsistencies I have been pointing out repeatedly and you have been ignoring repeatedly: a purpose that is a human’s mental feature is known by that human as such. Thus, if there were such a thing as a purpose shared in the minds of all humans then ALL humans would know it (and that is obviously not the case). There is no such thing as a purpose that I can have in my mind and NOT know it. Your bizarre example of a robot that has the purpose of opening doors you tried to bring up earlier shows that you don’t even seem to understand your own argument. Of course the robot doesn’t know what its purpose is: the robot does not hold the purpose in its mind. It doesn’t have a mind. It has a purpose because the human that programmed it had a purpose in its mind that it gave to the robot.
Reposted below.
Madbat said:
There’s no capacity to identify “patterns” and “regularities” or “chains” of events, or to build any sort of conceptual models or methods, without the application of logical principles. Your cart is before the horse.
Madbat continues:
Without logic, there’s no such thing as evidence, because there is no way to tie cause to effect, or make rational associations. Your cart is before the horse; logic produces evidence, models, associations, conclusions; evidence, models, correlations and conclusions do not produce logic.
Toronto said:
You are conflating two different arguments. The argument for theism as the only rationally coherent worldview doesn’t rely on the proposition that there are self-evidently true moral statements.
All arguments eventually hinge upon a priori axioms that nobody can “back up”, because they are held as axiomatic first principles.
Madbat said:
Whether or not the proposition (that self-evidently true moral statements exist) is true or false is entirely irrelevant. If Elizabeth and I agree to the proposition that Santa Clause exists for the sake of a hypothetical argument about how fast Santa must travel, what kind of load he must carry, and what kind of route he must take in order to make his rounds on Christmas eve, and what other conditions must be met in order for Santa to accomplish his task, it is a perfectly valid hypothetical argument.
It’s as if Elizabeth and I started such an argument, and you and others here insist that Santa doesn’t exist, and that we cannot prove he exists, and that we cannot demonstrate that all of the conditions that are argued (hypothetically) for Santa to succeed actually exist.
Madbat continues:
Then at least we agree that Elizabeth’s worldview is incoherent, even if we disagree that mine is.
The definition of self-evidence from dictionary.com:
Neil Rickert said:
If by “false implies anything” you are referring to the philosophical concept that a false premise can imply both a true and a false conclusion, that is correct, but irrelevant. What I meant was that a false proposition doesn’t imply “anything”, such as the proposition that santa clause exists (if false) doesn’t logically implicate that elephants are reptiles (“anything” in the general sense).
Since I am not claiming that the proposition or the conclusion is factually true, all that matters is that the logical inferences are sound, not whether or not the conclusions they produce are true. IOW, the argument is about the structural integrity of the hypothetical proposition’s place in a larger worldview, not whether or not the proposition or worldview reflect anything factually true.
Madbat said:
Not always. Humans often have self-destructive or ulterior purposes that are unknown to themselves as such until years of therapy make them understand these subconscious motivations. For example, I might consciously believe that my purpose in constantly belittling and ridiculing others is to point out their obvious flaws and shortcomings so they will be motivated to correct or better themselves, but after much therapy I might realize that my real motivation was a lack of self-esteem and an attempt to feel better about myself by deriding others.
Of course, not all humans consciously recognize what subconscious purposes motivate them to behave the way they do.
Obviously, I disagree. I think the subconscious is full of purposes and motivations that are entirely unknown to us at a conscious level. Have you never heard the phrase “I have no idea why I did that”? Do you dismiss hundreds of years of psychology and psychiatry that indicate people have a plethora of subconscious, unrecognized motivations and purposes to their behavior?
The technique of autosuggestion and affirmations is supposed to plant purposes and motivations into the subconscious or to erase negative purposes and motivations from it. Hypnosis techniques can plant purposes/motivations in the subconscious of the patient that changes their behavior without their ongoing conscious connection to the purpose being acted on.
However, you are free of course to hold that purposes cannot exist outside of our conscious mind, and that mind is a repository of entirely subjective thoughts with no substantial existence of its own. Unfortunately, that position doesn’t provide us any common ground to carry on the debate at hand.
Here’s a definition for subjective that will suffice for the purpose of this argument: that which lies in the mind of the observer which is not an objectively existent feature of mind.
And for objective (as characterized by the term “objectively existent): that which exists in and of itself regardless of subjective interpretation.
…………………………………
Theism is used in the “non-hypothetical” world, i.e., this one.
You are claiming a rational coherent worldview, in this case theism, can be derived from “hypothetical arguments” only.
How do you cross that border?
I’ve asked you many times to show me your logic when you assert something and you have never done it.
I hope you will this time.
Show me the logic that demonstrates that it is possible to cross the border from your “hypothetical” layer to your “non-hypothetical” layer.
Logic was invented by people just like interest rate calculations were.
You make it sound as if logic has an existence separate from humans.
No, I’m not.
I’m sure that’s the way it’s played out in your view. In my view, you’re unwilling to accept my corrections of your persistent mischaracterizations and reiterate them over and over, just as you have done above.
Once again, you are conflating two entirely different arguments. The “self-evidently true moral statements” argument is purely hypothetical. The “theism is the only rationally consistent and coherent worldview” is an entirely separate argument contains elements of the real world in its argument – such a empirical fact and evidence and testimony.
That argument is supported by the morality argument, but is not reliant upon it.
This is the reason I don’t respond to you at stretches, because every time I interact with you I have to address the same (and new) mischaracterizations of my position and argument.
If the principles of logic were arbitrary – like interest rates – then you’d have a point. However, they are not. We cannot set the fundamental principles of logic at whatever commodity or rate we wish; they are what they are, which indicates to me that they are indeed objectively existent aspects of mind.
Or perhaps you mean that mathematical calculations themselves are arbitrary? 1+1= whatever we decide?
Or, they are what we made them, which would indicate they are **not** “objectively existent aspects of mind”.
I’m not sure what you mean by “logic”, but it does not seem to be what everybody else means by “logic.”
Is pi also an “objectively existent aspect of mind” ?
Wrong. Knowledge of logical principles is completely unnecessary to recognize what things are similar, what things are dissimilar, what comes before, and what comes after. These are the capabilities, i.e. the capabilities of observation and memory, that are necessary to identify patterns, regularities and chains of events. Logic is simply the human-made formalization of such identifications and groupings. It is your cart that is before the horse.
Of course there is. Only BECAUSE I can observe certain events invariably following others, can I start naming them cause and effect, and develop logical statements out of these observed relationships!
No. Most meaningful arguments hinge on evidence.
Yeah, that’s kind of what we argue. Only we don’t *insist* that he doesn’t exist, we make very good arguments backed up by evidence that he doesn’t exist. And for some reason you don’t see the relevance of that argument to the question of Santa Clause’s existence and what he does. So I give up on this one. Have fun running in circles!
I said: “I can’t give any meaningful answer to this question because I find the concept of self-evidence to be incoherent.”
You answered: “Then at least we agree that Elizabeth’s worldview is incoherent, even if we disagree that mine is.”
You haven’t given a single argument in favor of your worldview being coherent.
Actually, it does. Read the concept again.
Ok. So you are using purpose under a quite different definition than I do. What you call a purpose is called by most other people (including your hundreds of years worth of psychology and psychiatry) an urge or desire. Under that definition I agree with you that humans in general share many universal *purposes*. But obviously, no mind of any god is required for the existence of these universal purposes.
Ok. I’ll need some clarification here: I have no idea what an in itself existing feature of a mind is, as opposed to a not in itself existing feature of a mind? What’s the difference between the two and how can I tell?
Ok. So objectively existent things are things that exist even though they may be unobservable. Again a clarification is needed: how do I tell that something is objectively existent if my (and everybody else’s) observations are inadequate?
I didn’t say knowledge of logical principles was necessary, I said logic was necessary. Just because you don’t specifically employ the first principle of logic (A=A) or know what that principle is doesn’t mean you aren’t employing it.
The written, formal principles, formulas and fallacies of logic don’t “invent” anything; they more rigorously codify logical habits humans employed before the term “logic” was invented which are used to establish true statements. IOW, the term “logic” (and non-logic and fallacies) is a descriptor of the way humans think when it comes to identifying things (A=A) and properly forming reliable models, predictions, interpretations and truthful conclusions (evidence).
Logic is the study of a method of thinking, it isn’t the invention of a method of thinking, just as gravitational theory is the study of a phenomena and not the invention of it.
Think of it this way; humans have used X thinking skills for thousands of years, and at some point we started calling it logic. Logic is a label for a system of thinking that existed before we started calling it logic, which begins with establishing a specific identity for a thing (A=A) and then developing true (or provisionally) statements about A using other principles and forms of thought that have been codified more rigorously after Aristotle as “logic”.
Saying that we could identify things and find provisionally true statements about them without logic because we don’t know we’re using it is like saying that before we knew about the digestive system, we didn’t need it to digest food. The principles of logic are not arbitrary, they describe a process of thought that one must use (whether they recognize it as logic or not) in order to identify things, form models, test those models, establish inferences and find provisionally true conclusions.
Even the very young employ logic before they can say a word when they realize that the child in the mirror is not another child, but themselves, or when they realize that two is more than one, or that one of their toys is not the same as a different toy. That kind of thinking is what logical terms describe.
You seem to think that as long as you don’t call it logic, it’s not logic. If you identify something a being a thing in itself and not other things, you’ve employed logic whether you call it logic or not. You can’t develop “evidence” without identifying things and developing correct inferences about the relationship of that thing to other things you’ve identified. That’s logic. Logic comes first.
Identifying logical principles is finding and naming some of the fundamental assumptions – realized or not – that humans employ. All views begin with assumptions that must be held axiomatically, such as the assumption that our senses deliver to us meaningful information. We have no way to prove that other than using the same information source; it simply must be assumed. We must also assume that our minds can produce meaningful, truthful statements based on that information – once again, we have nothing but our mind to use to check that assumption with.
All worldviews have at their root unverifiable, unprovable assumptions; it’s the nature of existence in Plato’s Cave.
I said, and wish to clarify the following:
What I meant by the above is: “Just because you don’t specify that you are employing the first principle of logic ….”
But its not the **only** “descriptor” we can come up with.
I can make a case for a state-machine model of how we think.
I can extend it by adding real-time multi-tasking or even multiple processing cores.
A better model would be of an analogue processor instead of digital.
While logic would be a good match for a digital form of thinking, analogue works well with magnitudes.
Consider the case of IF versus WHEN.
We could say, IF X > 5000 THEN…, or WHEN X > 5000 THEN.
They look identical except for 1 huge difference.
The analogue WHEN can **predict** when the event might occur where the logical IF can’t.
By monitoring the rate of change of X, we can look into the future, a huge advantage over a logical YES/NO model.
So an analogue model of a brain that can predict is vastly superior to a digital one that is restricted to processing only the state it is in.
Why wouldn’t god have given us a better model than the one you prefer?