Posted: Thu Aug 19, 2004 4:24 am Post subject: Re: use of language
Quote:
mooreffoc "<m"@mooreffoc.com > writes:
It turned out there were non-Euclidean geometries also, which sort of
demoted Euclidean Geometry from ranking with Jane's Sailing Ships and
Burke's Peerage.
curiously if what I understand about current thinking (a la universal
configuration) is correct. Its former rank has been restored, if only on
probation :-)
Daryl
And when He knew for certain, only drowning men could see Him.
He said all men shall be sailors then, until the sea shall free them.
(Leonard Cohen)
(remove nopax for e-mail)
Posted: Thu Aug 19, 2004 1:57 pm Post subject: Re: Lewis and Demons
On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 01:54:21 GMT, mooreffoc <"<m"@mooreffoc.com>>
wrote:
Quote:
Lewis certainly didn't do this in MIRACLES. He didn't explain 'how'
anything occurs. He said that for us to regard our thoughts as true they
must not be exclusively physically caused.
If he is going to make a claim for the impossibility of 'reason' being
explained within the context of the physical world, he is obligated
to show how it would be possible to do so in a non-causal,
non-physical world. Otherwise, within the context of his discussion
there is no reason to lend credibility to his claim that such a
'supernatural' world exists.
Seems to me it would be even 'more impossible' for the mind to be
able reason in a world without physical objects, a world in which
there is no time or space.
Quote:
He did not give any guesses
about the mind/body problem.
If there were no mind/body problem then he would not have been able to
latch onto the human ability to reason as 'proof' that the
supernatural exists.
James
---------------------------------------------------
"We cannot even begin to sketch a process in which matter
comes from mind, but we have some idea what stages might
be involved in the developement of psychological attributes
in a material universe." Bede Rundle
The assumption here seems to be that once you call on the supernatural
everything is 'explained.'
Sounds pompous if put that way, I wouldn't say 'explained' more like 'accounted
for'.
Appears to me that you are playing with words again.
Online dictionary definition for 'account for':
1. To constitute the governing or primary factor in: Bad weather
accounted for the long delay.
2. To provide an explanation or justification for: The suspect
couldn't account for his time that night.
If we both were in agreement that the supernatural really exists, then
it would be legitimate for you to use 'account for' (#1) in a
discussion such as this one.
But if you wish to provide a reason for believing in the supernatural
by claiming that the supernatural is needed to 'account for'(#2) the
mind's ability to reason, you are going to have to provide an
explanation for how it does this. Otherwise you are simply begging
the question at issue. Or, to put it another way, you are engaged in
circular reasoning.
Quote:
Well, I think the point is that when it comes to providing an
explanation, the same standards have to apply whether it is the
supernatural or the natural we are dealing with. Why should the one
be excused from meeting the same standards we expect of the other?
Because what we test and examine in the natural world could not be tested and
examined in the same way, or else it would be 'natural'. And we don't have the
standards to apply to the supernatural (our own minds included) to help us
evaluate what we observe and experience.
Sounds like you are agreeing with my basic position that the
supernatural is inherently unintelligible.
James
---------------------------------------------------
"We cannot even begin to sketch a process in which matter
comes from mind, but we have some idea what stages might
be involved in the developement of psychological attributes
in a material universe." Bede Rundle
The assumption here seems to be that once you call on the supernatural
everything is 'explained.'
Sounds pompous if put that way, I wouldn't say 'explained' more like
'accounted
for'.
Appears to me that you are playing with words again.
Online dictionary definition for 'account for':
1. To constitute the governing or primary factor in: Bad weather
accounted for the long delay.
2. To provide an explanation or justification for: The suspect
couldn't account for his time that night.
If we both were in agreement that the supernatural really exists, then
it would be legitimate for you to use 'account for' (#1) in a
discussion such as this one.
I was primarily just contrasting your statement that I had felt everything was
'explained' (in which case all the questions would be answered) with the
reality that while I don't have those explanations, I have a pigeonhole now to
put them in where they would not fit anywhere before. It was not really an
argument.
Quote:
But if you wish to provide a reason for believing in the supernatural
by claiming that the supernatural is needed to 'account for'(#2) the
mind's ability to reason, you are going to have to provide an
explanation for how it does this.
I am not trying to provide a reason, only your own experience can do that. I am
simply pointing out that there is a reasonable alternative.
Perhaps, once you explain to me your ideas concerning the journey from thought
to action (I am stretching for terms here, I am not trying to conclude
anything, I would just like to understand how you view the process); I will be
able to put things into terms that you will not feel beg the question.
Quote:
Otherwise you are simply begging
the question at issue. Or, to put it another way, you are engaged in
circular reasoning.
I know it seems that way to you, and I have been trying to find words that do
not convey the bias you claim I have.
Let me try again, please let me know if you disagree with the following.
Reasoning is a thinking process. It is not caused by material/physical
reactions.
Actions are material, they affect material things.
If we wish to say our actions are rational there has to be some relationship
between thought and action.
Daryl
And when He knew for certain, only drowning men could see Him.
He said all men shall be sailors then, until the sea shall free them.
(Leonard Cohen)
(remove nopax for e-mail)
Lewis certainly didn't do this in MIRACLES. He didn't explain 'how'
anything occurs. He said that for us to regard our thoughts as true they
must not be exclusively physically caused.
If he is going to make a claim for the impossibility of 'reason' being
explained within the context of the physical world, he is obligated
to show how it would be possible to do so in a non-causal,
non-physical world.
No he isn't. For example when Bohr realized that 'classical' physics would not
explain what he observed, he did not need to provide a complete explanation for
QM to assert its existance. He only needed to show that the old model could not
work.
Quote:
Otherwise, within the context of his discussion
there is no reason to lend credibility to his claim that such a
'supernatural' world exists.
You are playing with terms here this time. Give us a word for the
non-physical/thought/immaterial process that leads to action and we will use
that word for 'supernatural'. We know that standard models for physical
relationships do not work, ergo some other model must apply. That is all we are
saying. (sorry Mary if this doesn't explain your POV please feel free to
correct me)
Quote:
Seems to me it would be even 'more impossible' for the mind to be
able reason in a world without physical objects, a world in which
there is no time or space.
When you eliminate the 'possible'.....
Quote:
If there were no mind/body problem then he would not have been able to
latch onto the human ability to reason as 'proof' that the
supernatural exists
It would not be necessary to do so in those circumstances.
Daryl
And when He knew for certain, only drowning men could see Him.
He said all men shall be sailors then, until the sea shall free them.
(Leonard Cohen)
(remove nopax for e-mail)
Lewis certainly didn't do this in MIRACLES. He didn't explain 'how'
anything occurs. He said that for us to regard our thoughts as true they
must not be exclusively physically caused.
If he is going to make a claim for the impossibility of 'reason' being
explained within the context of the physical world, he is obligated
to show how it would be possible to do so in a non-causal,
non-physical world.
No he isn't. For example when Bohr realized that 'classical' physics would not
explain what he observed, he did not need to provide a complete explanation for
QM to assert its existance. He only needed to show that the old model could not
work.
And did Bohr then go on to claim that the supernatural explained what
we observe?
Quote:
Otherwise, within the context of his discussion
there is no reason to lend credibility to his claim that such a
'supernatural' world exists.
You are playing with terms here this time. Give us a word for the
non-physical/thought/immaterial process that leads to action and we will use
that word for 'supernatural'. We know that standard models for physical
relationships do not work, ergo some other model must apply. That is all we are
saying. (sorry Mary if this doesn't explain your POV please feel free to
correct me)
If you are going to replace the 'standard model' your new model has to
be capable of the same scrutiny you applied to the discarded model.
Quote:
Seems to me it would be even 'more impossible' for the mind to be
able reason in a world without physical objects, a world in which
there is no time or space.
When you eliminate the 'possible'.....
Then you look for a' possible' explanation. You don't replace it with
another 'impossible' explanation.
James
------------------------------------------------------
The pressure to find an explanation should not lead us to
accept uncritically just any hypothesis having a superficial
claim to provide an answer. The status of explanation is one
that has to be earned.
Bede Rundle
Posted: Thu Aug 19, 2004 7:06 pm Post subject: Re: angels and pins
On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 02:41:52 UTC, J.S.T. <spamfree@spamfree.com> wrote:
Quote:
It was a joke after the middle ages. I'm hopeful there were a few
intelligent medieval philosophers who also took it as a joke.
Here is a link for more info:
Strangely enough, if the info on that page is correct, even that
'great mind' M. Adler spent (wasted?) time on it. Since I never spent
my time reading his book "The Angels and Us", I can't testify to its
accuracy.
Thanks for the pointer, which gives a lot more detail than I'd seen
before, and looks reliable.
What you find if you look at what the medieval guys were saying is that it
was not a stupid piece of imaginary hair-splitting, but a thought
experiment with which people investigated the meaning of some parts of
their world view. An entriely reasonable investigation, if you accept the
principles of Aristotelian/Thomist philosophy. Perfectly nonsensical
waste of time if (like me) you don't see any value in that sort of
philosophy, but perfectly rational given the premises.
Note the propaganda method involved: "How many angels" seems to mean that
they were trying to count the number: would it be 17 or 349 or what?
Ridiculous. What a bunch of superstitious medieval (a pejorative word)
hair-splitting about nothing. Of course, they were doing nothing of the
kind; the question was whether it was finite or not.
...
1. Giving children the basic skills they will need to function professionally
2. Preparing children for responsible citizenship
3. Cultivating the talents of a (necessarily small) group of children with
the capacity to be truly creative and original.
...
4. forming the next generation of scholars
5. promoting religious orthodoxy.
/snip/
A god [SIC!] list. She definitely considered 5 to be central (though maybe not
uniquely so). I'm not sure we shouldn't include, as an end in itself,
"Teaching people to think clearly."
I was assuming that went under 3, along with scepticism about language.
I make the distinction because of the "necessarily small" in 3. I really
think she expected such education to be good for many more than the
scholarly elite. (Thus putting her on common ground with Jefferson? Not
something one can often do.)
Quote:
/snip/
...
Back in the good old days of the Green Book? But which time of Sayers's?
The time when she was a schoolgirl, or the time when she was grown up and
lecturing?
I was referring to the time in which and about which she was complaining.
By virtue of being in many people's youth or pre-youth, those days have,
as is inevitable, become the good old days before the hippies took over
and ruined education.
Quote:
...
For my part, I'm a little surprised that a
person who read old books, without even needing Lewis's advice, would have
such a high regard for the level of reasoning in the old days -- Bishop
Wilbeforce, anyone? Or was that too recent? Just which old days is she
praising, anyway?
Maybe enough centuries ago, that only Sturgeon's top 5% has survived?
But even that which has survived doesn't justify a really high regard for
the historical ability to recognize good and bad argument. I've read
some, especially fron the early 17th century -- maybe not long enough ago
for DLS? --- and I'm not impressed by the scholars' superiority to the
moderns.
But your comment is a good _a fortiori_: if this is the best 5%, what was
the rest like??
Quote:
...
Hm. Must look up Venn diagrams. Drawing sets and subsets and intersecting
sets etc seems much easier than syllogisms.
Yes.
Quote:
Wonder if anyone has done
picture books of sets from Lewis Carroll's logic nonsense things.
Charming idea. But you know, he invented his outrageous logic problems (
Every plum-pudding, served at my table, has been boiled in a cloth;
A plum-pudding that is mere porridge is indistinguishable from soup...)
as exercises in the newly invented symbolic logic, for which he was crying
in the wilderness a couple of generations before computers made it really
important. Venn diagrams, which are part of the same movement, wouldn't be
out of place with his problems. Maybe I should try some.
Quote:
The harder, syllogistic presentation might be better mental exercise. Might
be nice to introduce it the following year, or something, after they've had
the Poll Parrot familiarity with the pictures of the sets.
Almost right, The symbolic logic presentation would be the next step.
Syllogism technique per se is like Roman numerals: Learn about them one
morning so you can understand old books.
Quote:
... I note that Mary has asked about Bayesian logic in another post;
I'll try to comment on that tomorrow if no one else has.
Depending on what it turns out to be, and when it was named.... Before it
was recognized, falling into it accidentally might have been a sign of
sloppy thinking, and using it without some preface or disclaimer, a sign of
sloppy writing.
Well, we've had a brief intro to it now. In answer to your specifics,
it's named after an 18th-century clergyman, who stated what's now called
Bayes's Theorem, except that some people insist that he didn't really
state it definitively and it wasn't really original then and it shouldn't
be named after him. What matters is that Bayesian probability became
significant (and acquired its name) around 1950. Oh, and "Bayesian" has
philosophical and mathematical and statistical meanings that aren't the
same; this proves that, right or wrong, such ideas have been popular.
As to old quasi-Bayesian arguments being sloppy thinking as you suggest, I
admit that it could be so, but mainly I'd say the opposite: it was right
(often), but there was no respectable theory behind it. Bayes's theorem
provides a formalization of a natural and quite proper way of reasoning;
Michael's examples were of such reasoning, not of formal Bayesian
calculations. Remember that people knew how to count and add before
Peano and that crowd worked out a rigorous derivation for arithmetic
around 1900. And they could reason before Aristotle worked out the system
of syllogisms. I'll stop now, before I ramble further.
Oh wow, are we going to start doing Chick tracts on a.b.cs-l?
I recommend "Why Is Mary Crying?" which was handed to me on the street in
Chicago a couple of weeks ago. It begins with a presentation in the form
of a reasoned argument. To be sure, it's in comic-book form; and even
written out formally it would be subject to strong rebuttal, I suppose.
(Specifically, it's an argument against the Immaculate Conception,
complete with Biblical citations.) But it's within the bounds of
religious disputation in which people don't kill each other. THEN, the
second half goes into the history of how Satan set up all this wrong
doctrine, with excursions in the sacrifice of babies to Baal or whoever it
was. A classic.
It turned out there were non-Euclidean geometries also, which sort of
demoted Euclidean Geometry from ranking with Jane's Sailing Ships and
Burke's Peerage. :-)
curiously if what I understand about current thinking (a la universal
configuration) is correct. Its former rank has been restored, if only on
probation
Well, it's former rank was that of self-evident truth. Or says the school
of philosophical history that I follow. It's gone forever from there, we
may hope. Other geometries are entirely possible and are entirely
self-consistent. (Rather, they are self-consistent IF Euclidean geomtry
is. That has been formally proved.)
But at the moment Euclidean geometry appears to be empirically true of the
universe we live in. The universe could have had a net curvature, but it
turns out to be flat.
For a formal statement of that last bit, you need non-Euclidean geometry.
It turned out there were non-Euclidean geometries also, which sort of
demoted Euclidean Geometry from ranking with Jane's Sailing Ships and
Burke's Peerage. :-)
curiously if what I understand about current thinking (a la universal
configuration) is correct. Its former rank has been restored, if only on
probation :-)
Well, it's former rank was that of self-evident truth. Or says the school
of philosophical history that I follow. It's gone forever from there, we
may hope. Other geometries are entirely possible and are entirely
self-consistent. (Rather, they are self-consistent IF Euclidean geomtry
is. That has been formally proved.)
But at the moment Euclidean geometry appears to be empirically true of the
universe we live in. The universe could have had a net curvature, but it
turns out to be flat.
Which is all I was referring to (note Mary's smiliey about Jane's and mine at
the end)
Quote:
For a formal statement of that last bit, you need non-Euclidean geometry.
But not for an informal statement =)
Daryl
And when He knew for certain, only drowning men could see Him.
He said all men shall be sailors then, until the sea shall free them.
(Leonard Cohen)
(remove nopax for e-mail)
No he isn't. For example when Bohr realized that 'classical' physics would
not
explain what he observed, he did not need to provide a complete explanation
for
QM to assert its existance.
He only needed to show that the old model could not
work.
And did Bohr then go on to claim that the supernatural explained what
we observe?
I have answered your other point, it was not necessary for him to explain how
QM worked to toss out all of 'classical' physics all he needed to do was show
the current model didn't work. This is what Lewis and Adler do as well. The
physics of Naturalism cannot explain reason (indeed they exclude it) so you
can, as some do say thought and therfore reason are simply a quirk of some
material process, that they are only electro-chemical discharges. You cannot
claim, having thus excluded reason, that such a statement is rational. Or, you
can, as Lewis did, look elsewhere for the most likely explaination.
Quote:
If you are going to replace the 'standard model' your new model has to
be capable of the same scrutiny you applied to the discarded model.
QM would not stand up to the same scrutiny as "classical" physics, indeed, it
claims scrutiny distorts the results (causing the collapse of wavefunctions,
etc.) You are not even permitted to measure things in the usual ways since
anything you use for measurement alters one thing or another.
Since Bohr was not dealing with the spirit one would not really expect him to
look to the supernatural for an explaination, though at least one very, very
bright particle phyisist who used to post here once suggested it (QM) might be
the window through which the supernatural enters our world.
My point is, that your claim that I need prove the content of a replacement
model does not and has not applied. All I need demonstrate is that it is a
reasonable way to address the failure of the replaced system. There are other
possibilities than the one I offer that will do the same thing, I just think,
considering the weight of evidence (and, of course my own experience) that
Christianity offers the most likely one. Mary does not agree, and takes a
different approach that still fills the requirements for this argument. There
are other approaches that also work, but all fall outside what we would
normally think of as nature (unless you think nature is aware, which, I
suppose, would work too.)
Quote:
When you eliminate the 'possible'.....
Then you look for a' possible' explanation. You don't replace it with
another 'impossible' explanation.
I WAS playing with words here. The usual expression is "when you eliminate the
probable" This was supposed to be humorous.
Daryl
And when He knew for certain, only drowning men could see Him.
He said all men shall be sailors then, until the sea shall free them.
(Leonard Cohen)
(remove nopax for e-mail)
There are other
possibilities than the one I offer that will do the same thing, I just think,
considering the weight of evidence (and, of course my own experience) that
Christianity offers the most likely one.
Christianity? I'm not at all concerned about a particular religion
That is a matter of faith. I've never met a Christian before who
said that one of the tenets of their faith was the acceptance of the
'model' you've been proposing. But maybe you will be the first. :-)
I'm concerned with the claim that one can use the supernatural to
explain how things 'work' in this world.
James
------------------------------------------------------
The pressure to find an explanation should not lead us to
accept uncritically just any hypothesis having a superficial
claim to provide an answer. The status of explanation is one
that has to be earned.
Bede Rundle
Posted: Fri Aug 20, 2004 10:57 pm Post subject: Re: angels and pins
On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 18:06:16 GMT, Dan Drake wrote:
Aren't such 'thought experiments' designed to sound kind of silly, to make
it clear that they aren't real? Like Whosit's Cat. Will future
civilizations think our physicists really did that?
Mary
---------
Quote:
On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 02:41:52 UTC, J.S.T. <spamfree@spamfree.com> wrote:
It was a joke after the middle ages. I'm hopeful there were a few
intelligent medieval philosophers who also took it as a joke.
Here is a link for more info:
Strangely enough, if the info on that page is correct, even that
'great mind' M. Adler spent (wasted?) time on it. Since I never spent
my time reading his book "The Angels and Us", I can't testify to its
accuracy.:-)
Thanks for the pointer, which gives a lot more detail than I'd seen
before, and looks reliable.
What you find if you look at what the medieval guys were saying is that it
was not a stupid piece of imaginary hair-splitting, but a thought
experiment with which people investigated the meaning of some parts of
their world view. An entriely reasonable investigation, if you accept the
principles of Aristotelian/Thomist philosophy. Perfectly nonsensical
waste of time if (like me) you don't see any value in that sort of
philosophy, but perfectly rational given the premises.
Note the propaganda method involved: "How many angels" seems to mean that
they were trying to count the number: would it be 17 or 349 or what?
Ridiculous. What a bunch of superstitious medieval (a pejorative word)
hair-splitting about nothing. Of course, they were doing nothing of the
kind; the question was whether it was finite or not.
It turned out there were non-Euclidean geometries also, which sort of
demoted Euclidean Geometry from ranking with Jane's Sailing Ships and
Burke's Peerage. :-)
curiously if what I understand about current thinking (a la universal
configuration) is correct. Its former rank has been restored, if only on
probation :-)
Well, it's former rank was that of self-evident truth. Or says the school
of philosophical history that I follow. It's gone forever from there, we
may hope. Other geometries are entirely possible and are entirely
self-consistent. (Rather, they are self-consistent IF Euclidean geomtry
is. That has been formally proved.)
But at the moment Euclidean geometry appears to be empirically true of the
universe we live in.
Universe? Euclid works on a small scale, meeting on the level and whatsis
on the square. For mapping the globe you need parallel longitudes to meet.
Quote:
The universe could have had a net curvature, but it
turns out to be flat.
For a formal statement of that last bit, you need non-Euclidean geometry.
)))) !
What, Euclidean Geometry is a subset or special case within Non-Euclidean?
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