Correspondence Theory implies Dualism

[tonyrey]

The false dichotomies come fast and hard – either superstitious religious credulity, or else reductive materialism.

An amusing misrepresentation of any one, religious or not, who is opposed to your brand of reductive materialism - for that is precisely what it is - in spite of your protestations to the contrary! You reduce representation to physical isomorphisms and reject the existence of all intangibles except those which blatantly material. There is no mention of the mind whatsoever in your analysis of representation:

"It’s an isomorphism. A map. In human brains, it is made of neurons and axons and synapses, in fantastically huge arrays interconnected in stupendously complex patterns. But if you draw a map, say a crude drawing of the floorplan of your home, it is isomorphic to the structure of your home (from the top down, looking at the vertical walls) to the extent your drawing skills obtain.

In that case, the physical state could be grooves in the sand which you made with a stick to draw the floor plan of your home. It has meaning, because it is isomorphic; it corresponds to the plan of your house to some significant degree, where comprehending one leads to comprehension and understanding of the other, to the point (perhaps) where one is recognizable from familiarizing oneself with the other."

Implicit is the person who comprehends, understands, familiarizes and is responsible for the representation… which is revealed in the introduction of “oneself” right at the end. What does oneself refer to? What does the familiarizing? The brain?

 

[tonyrey]

Touchstone;6163799:

The false dichotomies come fast and hard – either superstitious religious credulity, or else reductive materialism.

An amusing misrepresentation of any one, religious or not, who is opposed to your brand of reductive materialism - for that is precisely what it is - in spite of your protestations to the contrary! You reduce representation to physical isomorphisms and reject the existence of all intangibles except those which are blatantly material. There is no mention of the mind whatsoever in your analysis of representation:

"It’s an isomorphism. A map. In human brains, it is made of neurons and axons and synapses, in fantastically huge arrays interconnected in stupendously complex patterns. But if you draw a map, say a crude drawing of the floorplan of your home, it is isomorphic to the structure of your home (from the top down, looking at the vertical walls) to the extent your drawing skills obtain.

In that case, the physical state could be grooves in the sand which you made with a stick to draw the floor plan of your home. It has meaning, because it is isomorphic; it corresponds to the plan of your house to some significant degree, where comprehending one leads to comprehension and understanding of the other, to the point (perhaps) where one is recognizable from familiarizing oneself with the other."

Implicit is the person who comprehends, understands, familiarizes and is responsible for the representation… which is revealed by the use of “you” - and “oneself” right at the end. What do “you” and “oneself” refer to? What does the familiarizing? The brain?

 

[punkforchrist]

Well, we can say it’s at least intuition. But we don’t know, a priori, in any rigorous sense of “know” if it’s more than that, until we take counsel of our experience. For the most part, for example, the physical world around us embodies something very close to the idea of the law of identity. But that would be something we learn via observation, not something we can somehow just realize as knowledge a priori. It’s an intuition, no doubt, but intuitions aren’t knowledge, ipso facto.

Whether there is such a thing as a priori knowledge isn’t pertinent to whether a correspondence theory of truth is true.

I understand, but my point is that that is a distinction without a difference. There’s no way to answer “what is truth” apart from offering an epistemology.

Sure, the two are often interrelated, but it doesn’t follow from that that the two are identical.

To answer the question IS to make profound epistemic claims.

I disagree. Only claiming to know what is true is an epistemic claim.

This is, interestingly another kind of dualism at work, which goes back to Plato, and probably back further; that truth is something we assess and define apart from epistemology. A lesson available to us that Plato did not have, and to a great extent, many who came far later did not have (cf. Aquinas) is that this dualism is badly mistaken. A definition of truth is an epistemology, and vice versa, inextricably. The method is the definition.

This is question-begging.

Because I will pull out a cigarette ligher and invite you to hold your hand in the flame for as long as you can. The folly and falsehood and pretense of such a retort is made manifest, vividly, if you should choose to stand by such a retort. It is falsifiable by your own involuntary actions in the most visceral way. Empiricism is not a crystal ball, or an infalible method, but it’s a heuristic humans are not at liberty to dismiss as fluff.

There’s a misunderstanding here about what empiricism is. I’m not objecting to our ability to know things through the senses. Rather, what I’m suggesting is that your dismissal of non-empirical knowledge is just as hasty as any hypothetical dismissal of empiricism that is without elaboration.

No idea. If correspondence doesn’t work, I think solipsism unto nihilism is the only path left.

Are you prepared to accept such an alternative?

My comments on Aristotle were not aimed at the superstitions of the time, but at the overarching idea that the intuition itself is somehow magical, authoritative in some sense, unassailable. That problem has endured right into this thread, though all those Greek animist ideas may be gone.

None of these things are “magical” or superstitious. Correspondence, it seems to me, is required by any scientific realism.

I understand, but my criticism of Aristotle goes far deeper than that, and rejects the idea that “know” has any meaning outside of that method. Do you think Aristotle would accept such empiricist claims. I think not! He was more an empiricist than Plato (which isn’t saying much), but he was no skeptic of the intuition in the way a modern disciplined thinker is.

But how is this alleged intuition at odds with empirical facts?

Words mean whatever we want them to mean, so one can call anything one wishes “correspondence”.

Sure, but as with any words with meaning, “correspondence” at least has a commonly shared definition.

But transcendental appeals are not grounded in the concepts that ground empiricism, and even if you call it “correspondence”, it’s word play, as you are not grounding an epistemology then in meaning derived from isomorphisms. The concept that that “correspondence” refers to, which is what is substantive here, is violated by such an appeal to transcendental arguments. The only value in calling that “correspondence” would be an “apologetic” value.

I’m afraid this is more “fluff.” While your thoughts are always appreciated, I don’t see any argumentation in the above paragraph, just assertions about how non-empirical methods are wrong.

Whys is that an important? I don’t see that as a predicate or premise for anything I’m arguing, here.

It’s related to the inference from correspondence to dualism. If there really is a mind that grounds the union of all true propositions, that mind is an omniscient mind. That would be one instance of dualism, even assuming that human minds are physical.

No. If you look back at the now numerous exchanges I’ve had with tonyrey, you will see, over and over, my attempts to get tonyrey out of the ‘reductive materialism’ box for me. . . . Hydrogen isn’t wet, and neither is oxygen, as I keep reminding tonyrey. How does that happen and water is “wet”?

Okay, so you have more of an emergence view of the human mind.

The mind is a fantastically more complex example of the same thing: emergence and highly complex, dynamic systems. It’s all material, and it’s not magic, but, as Clarke observed, often has an appearance of magic, because it’s simply far beyond what we can apprehend and process at the moment. That is the distinct pattern we discover through science and rigorous thinking about the world around us.

Calling dualism “magic” is an easy way to poison the well, but there’s simply no relationship between dualism and magic. Nor, for that matter, is there any relationship between the reality of God and magic.

 

[punkforchrist]

I’m not at all convinced that “the union of all true propositions is itself an abstract object that must be grounded in a mind.” Why can’t these true propistions be scattered one per mind in the universe? Why can’t some of these propositions be unknown or not as of yet invented/discovered?

They can certainly be unknown to us. Let’s look this step-by-step:

1. Each true proposition is an abstract object.
2. Each abstract object is a concept of a mind.
3. The union of all true propositions U is an abstract object.
4. Therefore, U is a concept of a mind.

While we can postulate that there are many minds that know one or more (but not all) propositions of U, it is still the case that U itself is an abstract object in need of being the concept of a mind (via premise 3). One of the above premises will need to be rejected in order to avoid to conclusion. You can either say that propositions are not abstract objects, that abstract objects are not conceptual in nature, or that U is not an abstract object.

Also, since we are talking about it the notion, the-union-of-all-true-propositions is a concept that both of our minds are using without knowing what all the true propositions are.

Yes, we can talk about something without knowing without knowing everything about it. However, the argument above seeks to establish that there is a mind that knows U.

 

[Leela]

They can certainly be unknown to us. Let’s look this step-by-step:

1. Each true proposition is an abstract object.
2. Each abstract object is a concept of a mind.
3. The union of all true propositions U is an abstract object.
4. Therefore, U is a concept of a mind.

While we can postulate that there are many minds that know one or more (but not all) propositions of U, it is still the case that U itself is an abstract object in need of being the concept of a mind (via premise 3). One of the above premises will need to be rejected in order to avoid to conclusion. You can either say that propositions are not abstract objects, that abstract objects are not conceptual in nature, or that U is not an abstract object.

Yes, we can talk about something without knowing without knowing everything about it. However, the argument above seeks to establish that there is a mind that knows U.

With regard to 1., aren’t false propositions abstract objects? Then 2. through 4. in your reasoning suggests that there is a mind that “knows” all false propositions. But if knowledge is justified true belief it makes no sense to know something that ain’t so.

It is possible to believe false propositions but not possible to know a false proposition.

Best,
Leela

 

[Touchstone]

Whether there is such a thing as a priori knowledge isn’t pertinent to whether a correspondence theory of truth is true.

In a straightforward way, yes, but the reality of a priori knowledge is pertinent to the idea that the epmirical method “is the definition” as I said previously, and that such a claim is not begging the question. Without a priori knowledge, it becomes the only path to knowledge.

I disagree. Only claiming to know what is true is an epistemic claim.

That’s transcendentally false. A claim to know what is ‘true’ is meaningless without investing some semantic capital in the term ‘true’. That is, unless and until ‘true’ is carrying some cargo there, it isn’t even an epistemic commitment to say “X is true”. It’s just an empty statement, signifying nothing.

Conversely, to invest meaning in ‘true’, we have to have something to map that term to. that’s how meaning works, that’s what makes ‘true’ significant as a term. If the term is to be meaningful, it has to be mapped to something that interacts with reality, somehow. This is the ‘method’, and this is the sole source of meaning for the term.

This is question-begging.
See above. I don’t think so for transcendental reasons. Without a method, the definition is empty, void, necessarily. This is precisely the problem with theistic claims like “God exists” as a “true” statement. It’s empty, meaningless, unattached to any interaction or method that gives it meaning. It’s precisely as meaningful as “door green the” – words we recognize as meaningful in other contexts, but which signify nothing as constructed. What does “exist” and ‘true’ mean, respectively. If you don’t interact, you cannot say, not even a little bit. You can only hope others don’t notice those statements are meaningless.

There’s a misunderstanding here about what empiricism is. I’m not objecting to our ability to know things through the senses. Rather, what I’m suggesting is that your dismissal of non-empirical knowledge is just as hasty as any hypothetical dismissal of empiricism that is without elaboration.

I think that ignores or otherwise misses the diligence that does go into this. It isn’t hasty. It’s not a premise. It’s a conclusion that gets stronger and strong with every bit of examination you want to add to the pile. Not that non-empirical knowledge can’t exist – that’s a universal negative that cannot be demonstrated, even in principle, of cousre – but that there’s no reasonable basis for supposing such a thing exists, all the same. You cannot show me unicorns do not exist, but you can very reasonably point out I’m unjustified in believing they do.

Non-empirical knowledge may exist. It’s a possibility that can’t be ruled out. It’s just unreasonable and self-indulgent to embrace such an idea, given the evidence we have available.

That’s not hasty. Its a sober judgment on a whole long stream of evidence trailing back over centuries.

Are you prepared to accept such an alternative?

Yes, I think so – I can’t know more fully than that until it’s a real circumstance, though. I’m an atheist, that’s a conclusion just as unthinkable and scandalous as any kind of nihilism or solipsism I could consider, coming from the standpoint of a devout Christian from early childhood. One either decides to accept evidence against interest, or not. Atheism is an artifact of the choice of evidence over interest.

None of these things are “magical” or superstitious. Correspondence, it seems to me, is required by any scientific realism.

Yes, but the empirical dog wags the tail of intuition in science, not the other way 'round, which would be a religious stance, and much closer to my understanding of Aristotle. Science is a research project, and there are no guarantees that correspondence or any part of its model will prevail, nor even any metapshyical claim that correspondence is “true”. Science develops models, and hones them toward (hopefully, but not necessarily) ever more performative models that correspond empirically to the world around us.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

punkforchrist:

But how is this alleged intuition at odds with empirical facts?

Sometimes it’s not, of course. Science confirms a great many of our intuitions. But science is singular in its skill and history as a “dragon slayer” of man’s mighty intuition. Humans are pathetic, it turns out, when it comes to probabilities and statistics at large scales. Are intuitions are goofy, misleading, and beloved unto unshakeable. Science is a mirror we can hold up and see just how goofy our intuitions about probabilities are (for example). We can see, through disciplined analysis, how irrational our incredulity concerning long odds ('that’s really unlikely, therefore God!") is. Doesn’t mean there is no God, but it does mean that if we are willing to think clearly and honestly about probabilities and numbers and phase spaces, we see we are handicapped by intuitions that serve us terribly on questions of that sort.

Those intuitions serve us well in biological terms, though, remember. Better safe than sorry for a being that wants to survive, and the future belongs to the paranoid. It’s a great survival model our eveolutionary history has honed in us, but it’s a joke for thinking about more cerebral questions, questions where there is not such a huge downside for being even-minded and dispassionate about the question.

I’m afraid this is more “fluff.” While your thoughts are always appreciated, I don’t see any argumentation in the above paragraph, just assertions about how non-empirical methods are wrong.

My argument is not that not non-empiricial methods are “wrong”, but that these ‘non-empirical methods’ are perfectly incoherent as methods. They are not “methods” in any meaningful sense of the term, and they aren’t even meaningful enough to bear the label “wrong”. I don’t think such claims can be assessed any more deeply than to see they are empty, meaningless, not even wrong.

I invite you to demonstrate otherwise. I always invite, and no one ever takes me up on it. The silence is deafening in the answers to this question. If you could show me how these methods could even be wrong – forget correct --, that would really be something!

It’s related to the inference from correspondence to dualism. If there really is a mind that grounds the union of all true propositions, that mind is an omniscient mind. That would be one instance of dualism, even assuming that human minds are physical.

Yes, but this is a perfectly empty statement. Utterly frivolous. It’s not addressable in terms of verification OR falsification. It’s completely inert. You might as well ask me what if the color nine smells good, after all. We’d make just as much headway on either – perfectly none.

Once again, that’s my claim. If you think that is incorrect, I invite you to show me how that would be shown.

No. If you look back at the now numerous exchanges I’ve had with tonyrey, you will see, over and over, my attempts to get tonyrey out of the ‘reductive materialism’ box for me. . . . Hydrogen isn’t wet, and neither is oxygen, as I keep reminding tonyrey. How does that happen and water is “wet”?

Okay, so you have more of an emergence view of the human mind.
Yes. Not just the mind, but all of nature.

Calling dualism “magic” is an easy way to poison the well, but there’s simply no relationship between dualism and magic. Nor, for that matter, is there any relationship between the reality of God and magic.

On dualism as magic, I certainly agree, one is not the other. Dualism doesn’t entail magic. But many dualist views do, nonetheless, invoke magic – Christianity! And maybe we need to level-set on what we mean by magic, but the Christian God is the apotheosis of magic, I can’t think of anything more purely magical than the Christian God. Magic as “manipulation by the will” – a rendering I think that is non-controversial in its grounding in history and language.

Christians have always been sensitive to protect “good magic” – the holy, divine manipulation of reality by the power of God’s will – as distinct from “bad magic”, any manipulation source outside of the divine will of God. That’s understandable as a matter of realpolitik, but it is just a conceit, like Republicans thinking that Democrats are the “cynical partisans”, and they are the statesmen (and vice versa). This is just political positioning – it’s all magic in terms of the dynamics and the distortion of reality. Christians just are averse to having their “good magic” share even the same term as what they deem “bad magic”.

-TS

 

[punkforchrist]

With regard to 1., aren’t false propositions abstract objects? Then 2. through 4. in your reasoning suggests that there is a mind that “knows” all false propositions. But if knowledge is justified true belief it makes no sense to know something that ain’t so.

It is possible to believe false propositions but not possible to know a false proposition.

Best,
Leela

Granting that false propositions do exist as abstract objects, this won’t be alarming for the Christian, or for the dualist in general. After all, God knows that false propositions, such as “2+2=5” are false.

 

[punkforchrist]

Touchstone:

In a straightforward way, yes, but the reality of a priori knowledge is pertinent to the idea that the epmirical method “is the definition” as I said previously, and that such a claim is not begging the question. Without a priori knowledge, it becomes the only path to knowledge.

Of course, but I’m missing the link from “all knowledge is a posteriori” to the conclusion that correspondence or dualism is false. There’s no reason an empiricist cannot also be a dualist.

That’s transcendentally false. A claim to know what is ‘true’ is meaningless without investing some semantic capital in the term ‘true’.

I don’t know what you mean by “transcendentally false.” A transcendental is a necessary precondition of knowledge. In any case, both your conditional and your consequent above make use of our knowledge of truth. I agree that we cannot know what is true without some epistemic model.

That is, unless and until ‘true’ is carrying some cargo there, it isn’t even an epistemic commitment to say “X is true”. It’s just an empty statement, signifying nothing.

Is it true that it signifies nothing?

Conversely, to invest meaning in ‘true’, we have to have something to map that term to. that’s how meaning works, that’s what makes ‘true’ significant as a term. If the term is to be meaningful, it has to be mapped to something that interacts with reality, somehow. This is the ‘method’, and this is the sole source of meaning for the term.

How is this “mapping” any different than correspondence?

See above. I don’t think so for transcendental reasons. Without a method, the definition is empty, void, necessarily. This is precisely the problem with theistic claims like “God exists” as a “true” statement. It’s empty, meaningless, unattached to any interaction or method that gives it meaning. . . .

Fortunately for theists, even most atheistic philosophers agree that “God” has meaning.

I think that ignores or otherwise misses the diligence that does go into this. It isn’t hasty. It’s not a premise. It’s a conclusion that gets stronger and strong with every bit of examination you want to add to the pile. Not that non-empirical knowledge can’t exist – that’s a universal negative that cannot be demonstrated, even in principle, of cousre – but that there’s no reasonable basis for supposing such a thing exists, all the same. You cannot show me unicorns do not exist, but you can very reasonably point out I’m unjustified in believing they do.

I’m not asking you to prove a universal negative. However, if something is called “meaningless,” even though a definition is provided, I feel compelled to press the point. Here we have dualism: “the mind is immaterial.” I grant that one may be an empiricist, but it doesn’t at all follow that empiricism is somehow at odds with dualism. One may very well make observations, and infer that the mind is immaterial.

Non-empirical knowledge may exist. It’s a possibility that can’t be ruled out. It’s just unreasonable and self-indulgent to embrace such an idea, given the evidence we have available.

That’s not hasty. Its a sober judgment on a whole long stream of evidence trailing back over centuries.

Since a lot of our discussion is focused on a priori knowledge and intuition, allow me to ask: why should we trust our own cognitive faculties to give us reliable knowledge about evidence?

Yes, I think so – I can’t know more fully than that until it’s a real circumstance, though. I’m an atheist, that’s a conclusion just as unthinkable and scandalous as any kind of nihilism or solipsism I could consider, coming from the standpoint of a devout Christian from early childhood. One either decides to accept evidence against interest, or not. Atheism is an artifact of the choice of evidence over interest.

Atheism notwithstanding, the reason I ask is that nihilism and solipsism are a hard pill to swallow for many, including atheists. There’s a big difference between the philosophies of Nietzsche and Russell, for example.

Yes, but the empirical dog wags the tail of intuition in science, not the other way 'round, which would be a religious stance, and much closer to my understanding of Aristotle. Science is a research project, and there are no guarantees that correspondence or any part of its model will prevail, nor even any metapshyical claim that correspondence is “true”. Science develops models, and hones them toward (hopefully, but not necessarily) ever more performative models that correspond empirically to the world around us.

I ask for your patience, but I’m having a difficult time understanding your position. I’ll just ask in a very yes-or-no-answer type of way. Do you believe that science gives us reliable knowledge about the world? Feel free to expound.

 

[punkforchrist]

Sometimes it’s not, of course. Science confirms a great many of our intuitions. But science is singular in its skill and history as a “dragon slayer” of man’s mighty intuition.

I’m not just talking about any intuitions, though. I’m talking about the necessary preconditions of science. The law of non-contradiction, the law of identity, the law of excluded middle, the transitive axiom, basic mathematical formulas, etc., are all presupposed by science.

Humans are pathetic, it turns out, when it comes to probabilities and statistics at large scales. Are intuitions are goofy, misleading, and beloved unto unshakeable. Science is a mirror we can hold up and see just how goofy our intuitions about probabilities are (for example). We can see, through disciplined analysis, how irrational our incredulity concerning long odds ('that’s really unlikely, therefore God!") is. Doesn’t mean there is no God, but it does mean that if we are willing to think clearly and honestly about probabilities and numbers and phase spaces, we see we are handicapped by intuitions that serve us terribly on questions of that sort.

Teleological arguments don’t state that X is unlikely, therefore God. However, that’s all beside the point, since the issue isn’t probability, or even specified probability. We’re talking about the transcendentals that allow science to make any sense in the first place. If we throw out the laws of logic, then all of science collapses.

My argument is not that not non-empiricial methods are “wrong”, but that these ‘non-empirical methods’ are perfectly incoherent as methods.

Isn’t “incoherent” just a subset of “wrong”?

They are not “methods” in any meaningful sense of the term, and they aren’t even meaningful enough to bear the label “wrong”. I don’t think such claims can be assessed any more deeply than to see they are empty, meaningless, not even wrong.

Verificationism, as you seem to be defending, has been long abandoned. This, I think, is also for good reason, seeing as verificationism is self-defeating.

I invite you to demonstrate otherwise. I always invite, and no one ever takes me up on it. The silence is deafening in the answers to this question. If you could show me how these methods could even be wrong – forget correct --, that would really be something!

One way would be to show that some hypothesis X, as provided by an a priori method (it doesn’t matter which one), is just logically contradictory. If my conception of God is like a square-circle, then that would be one way of defeating that conception.

Yes, but this is a perfectly empty statement. Utterly frivolous. It’s not addressable in terms of verification OR falsification.

I don’t agree that either one of these conditions is necessary in order for a statement to be meaningful. As I alluded to earlier, verificationism fails from the very beginning - that is, we are incapable of verifying the idea that all beliefs must be verifiable.

Yes. Not just the mind, but all of nature.

Okay.

On dualism as magic, I certainly agree, one is not the other. Dualism doesn’t entail magic.

Alright, but for the purposes of this thread, that’s all that’s necessary.

But many dualist views do, nonetheless, invoke magic – Christianity! And maybe we need to level-set on what we mean by magic, but the Christian God is the apotheosis of magic, I can’t think of anything more purely magical than the Christian God. Magic as “manipulation by the will” – a rendering I think that is non-controversial in its grounding in history and language.

If magic is just “manipulation by the will” and nothing more, then that would include all dualistic views, since the immaterial mind “manipulates” the body to move, etc.

More importantly, though, I don’t agree with such a broad definition of “magic.” Magic is not only supernatural, but is performed by those who do not by their own essence possess the ability to perform some act.

Christians have always been sensitive to protect “good magic” – the holy, divine manipulation of reality by the power of God’s will – as distinct from “bad magic”, any manipulation source outside of the divine will of God. That’s understandable as a matter of realpolitik, but it is just a conceit . . .

“Bad magic” would be something like witchcraft, which doesn’t even claim to have its source in God, but by some other supernatural creature (as opposed to the Creator). There’s an immediate difference already apparent in intention.

 

[Leela]

Granting that false propositions do exist as abstract objects, this won’t be alarming for the Christian, or for the dualist in general. After all, God knows that false propositions, such as “2+2=5” are false.

I’ve turned your argument around a bit, to show that it also amounts to saying this:

1. Each false proposition is an abstract object.
2. Each abstract object is a concept of a mind.
3. The union of all false propositions U is an abstract object.
4. Therefore, U is a concept of a mind.

U is defined above as the set of all false propositions and is itself an abstract object. Your assertion number three (if we assume that it is true) requires that the set of all false propositions is a concept of a mind. This does not mean as you stated above that some mind must know that “2+2=5” is false but rather that some mind must literally “know” that 2+2=5. This is impossible since “2+2=5” is a false proposition.

Your error is in supposing that no new concepts are ever created in new minds–that all concepts exist somewhere “out there” (or in the mind of God) waiting to be thought of by people.

 

[Touchstone]

Of course, but I’m missing the link from “all knowledge is a posteriori” to the conclusion that correspondence or dualism is false. There’s no reason an empiricist cannot also be a dualist.

Well, just so your clear on my position, I think the a piori/a posteriori dichotomy itself is problematic, ignorant of biology. There’s no support in the evidence for any kind of magic or cosmic a priori knowledge of the kind Plato (or you) supposes himself possessed of. But as a human, we do have a kind of “sixth sense” in the most natural, unmagical way built in us; it’s part of our biology. We “know”, for example, to suck at our mother’s breast when we are feed, at the moment we are born. We aren’t taught that, we don’t have to learn that response. It is “a priori” in the sense that it is present at birth but it is “biological knowledge”, for lack of a better word. There’s a “third epistemic category” we have discovered through biology that Plato and a great many after him did not understand, and and understood in superstitious terms.

That said, I agree that one can be an empiricist and a dualist without logical contradictions.

I don’t know what you mean by “transcendentally false.” A transcendental is a necessary precondition of knowledge. In any case, both your conditional and your consequent above make use of our knowledge of truth. I agree that we cannot know what is true without some epistemic model.

That’s a synopsis of the transcendentals at work here then. Just as I cannot sustain a statement like “I cannot communicate at all in English” – it’s transcendentally false… “if it’s true, it’s false”. By the same token, I cannot say “this is true” or “this is false” without committing myself transcendentally to some discrete semantics for “true”. As you say, both, condition and consequent are predicated on our knowledge of truth. This is just a statement of the transcendental relationship I was point at concerning ‘true’ and interactions with the world that give meaning to that term.

Is it true that it signifies nothing?

Hah. Well, yes. Nothing probitive to the state of reality, anyway. Even nonsense and incoherence be can be viewed as significant in some context.

How is this “mapping” any different than correspondence?

It’s not, essentially. These are both expressions of isomorphism. The salient point there is that it doesn’t matter what you call it, the crucial piece, the piece which credulous faith in one’s intuition breaks, is the correlation of phenomena. Call it mapping, correspondence, isomorphics – doesn’t matter. What matters is the symmetry in the relationships of subjects and objection between a concept and an external context.

Fortunately for theists, even most atheistic philosophers agree that “God” has meaning.

It does, for sure, but again, only in a casual, colloquial way, or more precisely, in an off-topic way. “God” is a powerful term, rich with meaning even and especially if it is an imaginary construct of the mind. That’s meaningful, manifestly – it serves communication, it motivates people’s actions and beliefs, etc. Done deal.

But to say “God has meaning” in the context we have here in this thread is to equivocate, to overload the word with meanings extraneous to our question here. What does “God” mean in an existential context. What is the semantic cargo of “God” as an entity that exists (or not)? What does it mean for “God” to be?

If we try to give meaning to God in that sense, we come up empty, and “fluff” would be a charitable term to describe what gets proferred up by those who will address the question ON THOSE GROUNDS. Or if not, I invite you to make history right here on this thread.

“God” in that context, as the object of an existential analysis, is an empty, incoherent term. Meaningless.

I’m not asking you to prove a universal negative. However, if something is called “meaningless,” even though a definition is provided, I feel compelled to press the point.

That’s fair, and you are wise to do so. But as above, I think you are conflating your senses of “God”. As I said, “God” is rich with meaning in a religious context, or as an imaginary deity. But God as an extant phenomenon, that definition has NOT been provided, ever, in any way we could say is substantive [sic] and coherent. Hopefully this is clear, but giving me a definition like “A spiritual entity that I believe is all powerful, all-loving and yet hidden, unseen” does have meaning in many contexts, but it’s a misdirection if you offer something like that back to the question: what does “God” mean in the context of “exist”?

I invite you to press the point on that definition. I am always interested in teasing out semantics that are responsive to that question.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

punkforchrist:

Here we have dualism: “the mind is immaterial.” I grant that one may be an empiricist, but it doesn’t at all follow that empiricism is somehow at odds with dualism. One may very well make observations, and infer that the mind is immaterial.

Right. In terms of avoiding logical/categorical errors, I’m right with you. I don’t think one should avoid dualist conclusions because it’s not logically possible, not a possible outcome in some possible world – it is that. Rather, it is a logical possibility, but one that just isn’t actually supported by the empirical evidence, and reasoned analysis thereupon.

Logically possible, but factually unreasonable. It’s a vote for one’s fave intuitions over and against the actualities of the world around us. Not logically forbidden, just counterindicated by the facts and reasoning from it, dualism is.

Is that a clear enough distinction?

Since a lot of our discussion is focused on a priori knowledge and intuition, allow me to ask: why should we trust our own cognitive faculties to give us reliable knowledge about evidence?

We are hard wired to do so. It’s not an option for a human, physiologically. You cannot not trust those faculties, lest you die. Sooner more likely than later, so don’t go near traffic if you are thinking of experimenting in this area. To “go there” is what why identify as a clinical form of insanity. It represents the systemic failure of our neurophysiology when it does happen.

Atheism notwithstanding, the reason I ask is that nihilism and solipsism are a hard pill to swallow for many, including atheists. There’s a big difference between the philosophies of Nietzsche and Russell, for example.

Yeah, but if you take ideas seriously, the “hardness of the pill” doesn’t make that pill unreal. It either is, or it is not. You can find it appealing or not, but what is, is, and is perfectly unconcerned with how appealing we may find that reality. If you take understanding the world around you seriously, that objection cannot stand. You’re just a poseur pretending to be a serious thinker, if so.

I don’t think grounds for solipsism or nihilism obtain, not nearly. But If one is going to rule that out – or any of the other possibilities, including theism or atheism, just for reasons of taste and personal satisfaction, then give up immediately, and go play tennis or do the crossword or bring a meal to the elderly lady down the block, Serious thinking is a waste of one’s time if that’s the starting disposition.

I ask for your patience, but I’m having a difficult time understanding your position. I’ll just ask in a very yes-or-no-answer type of way. Do you believe that science gives us reliable knowledge about the world? Feel free to expound.

Yes, but only because there’s no model that is more convincing, or even competitive. I don’t say “yes” in the sense that there is some metaphysical imperative that the world be thus; I’ve no basis to assert that. But given the experiences we have available to us, and the analytic powers (feeble though they may be at points) we can apply, it’s the unchallenged leader in providing the mind with reliable knowledge about the world.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

I’m not just talking about any intuitions, though. I’m talking about the necessary preconditions of science. The law of non-contradiction, the law of identity, the law of excluded middle, the transitive axiom, basic mathematical formulas, etc., are all presupposed by science.

It’s all provisional, though. All these axioms are assumed by science, but they are assumed provisionally. These axioms might be (er, might have been) disastrous toward science’s goals, for all we know. The world may be such that the Law of Identity and the Law of Non-contradiction are refuted as empirical laws, and are reduced to mere notions. It’s not a given that they must and will hold up, as science spins up. Science is very much a research program that takes (in part) those logical rules, and tests them as hypotheses. How good a model can we build of the world based on symmetric math, and the law of non-contradiction, for example? At the outset, we have no idea. Today, there’s a a lot (!) of evidence that we can build some very exquisite models of the world around us that depende crucially on just those predicates.

So, I would say they are just any intuitions, in that sense. They are not “givens” in some metaphysically imperative sense, per science. They are provisional principles, tools we believe, going in, may be useful in building effective models. But it possibly may have turned out otherwise, and none of those intuitions held up. They aren’t special in any reasonable sense. They are just fundamental and beloved, which breeds a kind of affection for them. Like any intuition, though, they are not knowledge, and subject to being overthrown and discredited by experience.

Teleological arguments don’t state that X is unlikely, therefore God. However, that’s all beside the point, since the issue isn’t probability, or even specified probability. We’re talking about the transcendentals that allow science to make any sense in the first place. If we throw out the laws of logic, then all of science collapses.

Yes, see above. Science “bootsraps”, totally without any formal justification. Call it a hunch if you will. It’s a research project, and subject to being falsified, in part or as a whole. It doesn’t say “since logic must be right for this to work, and this method must work…”. Instead it says “what if logic and objective observation was deeply useful in building models of the world? How far would that take us?”.

That makes no claim that needs justification. It doesn’t care a whit if you find that metaphysically grounded or not. It will judge itself empirically by it’s own results.

To suppose that that transcendentals are relevant at ALL in terms of the basis for science is to badly misunderstand its foundation. It’s an unjustified guess about the way the world works that proves itself in what it produces, not its its origins or pedigree. It’s anti-religion in that sense.

Isn’t “incoherent” just a subset of “wrong”?

No. Would you say a number divided by zero is “true (greater than zero)” or “false (*zero or less than zero)”?

It’s a malformed question. Dividing by zero is undefined. “Wrong” invests meaning and context that does not apply. Talking about God existing is the linguistic version of dividing by zero in math. It’s a full stop, a void. Undefined.

Verificationism, as you seem to be defending, has been long abandoned. This, I think, is also for good reason, seeing as verificationism is self-defeating.

Yeah, I’ve been through this before on this forum. I’m not a subscriber to verificationism. Instead, I am a proponent of scientific realism, which brings with it strong discipline in terms of falsification, which is a fundamentally different epistemology to verificational approaches. I’m on the other end, along with the vast core of the scientific community in understanding knowledge as essentially eliminative. Verificationism, which purports to positively establish propositions, falls on its own sword, as you’ve pointed out. But falsification as part of a scientific heuristic isn’t like that at all. It demands performs in terms of models, but always and only in an eliminative context; to be knowledge, it must not just perform, but be at practical risk of falsification and coming to discredit.

That approach, in contrast, does not fall on its own terms, but validates itself as science proceeds. See above regarding science as a research project.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

punkforchrist:

One way would be to show that some hypothesis X, as provided by an a priori method (it doesn’t matter which one), is just logically contradictory. If my conception of God is like a square-circle, then that would be one way of defeating that conception.

Right. I am telling you your conception of God is a “squared circle” in several different aspects. The problem is, for one who prefers intuition over empirical evidence, it won’t convince you at all, because when it comes to God, a circle can be squared. It’s just a mystery puny humans can’t fathom, doncha know. Your God is only incoherent in a disciplined epistemology. As soon as intuition outranks empiricism and reason, there are no logical contradictions that can be enforced as you suggest. You’d have to seriously doubt God’s existence to even be able to identify the concept of God as an outrageous case of a “square circle”.

I don’t agree that either one of these conditions is necessary in order for a statement to be meaningful. As I alluded to earlier, verificationism fails from the very beginning - that is, we are incapable of verifying the idea that all beliefs must be verifiable.

No, see above on verificationism and falsification/scientific realism.

If magic is just “manipulation by the will” and nothing more, then that would include all dualistic views, since the immaterial mind “manipulates” the body to move, etc.

Right. Insofar as one posits an immaterial will effecting material manipulations, you have a belief in magic.

More importantly, though, I don’t agree with such a broad definition of “magic.” Magic is not only supernatural, but is performed by those who do not by their own essence possess the ability to perform some act.

I don’t recognize ‘essence’ as a meaningful term here. What precisely do you mean by ‘essence’? I need that to give you a coherent answer.

“Bad magic” would be something like witchcraft, which doesn’t even claim to have its source in God, but by some other supernatural creature (as opposed to the Creator). There’s an immediate difference already apparent in intention.

Yes, agreed. If we accept Christian value distinctions of what is “good” and “bad”, then the demarcation is fairly clear (although not always!). But this is subjective slicing. The causes and effects, what’s really happening, what’s really being manipulated is “value free” in the sense that all falls-due-to-gravity are value free. We might say gravity that causes one to fall to one’s death is “bad gravity”, and gravity that provides traction for us to walk is “good gravity”. Fine, I can understand that. But that’s just pouring our subjective labels over the physics. Gravity is gravity. Magic is magic. “Good magic” vs. “bad magic”, if it’s more than a figment of the imagination at all, is a function of the team jersey one is wearing.

-TS

 

[punkforchrist]

I’ve turned your argument around a bit, to show that it also amounts to saying this:

1. Each false proposition is an abstract object.
2. Each abstract object is a concept of a mind.
3. The union of all false propositions U is an abstract object.
4. Therefore, U is a concept of a mind.

U is defined above as the set of all false propositions and is itself an abstract object. Your assertion number three (if we assume that it is true) requires that the set of all false propositions is a concept of a mind. This does not mean as you stated above that some mind must know that “2+2=5” is false but rather that some mind must literally “know” that 2+2=5. This is impossible since “2+2=5” is a false proposition.

Keep in mind I’ve only said that the abstract object exists as a concept of the mind. There was nothing in the original argument about belief, and since knowledge just is justified true belief, the counter-argument is immediately disanalogous.

 

[punkforchrist]

Touchstone:

Well, just so your clear on my position, I think the a piori/a posteriori dichotomy itself is problematic, ignorant of biology. There’s no support in the evidence for any kind of magic or cosmic a priori knowledge of the kind Plato (or you) supposes himself possessed of.

We’re going to have to get away from calling a priori knowledge “magic” or “superstition.” Nothing about a priori knowledge even suggests going beyond nature.

But as a human, we do have a kind of “sixth sense” in the most natural, unmagical way built in us; it’s part of our biology. We “know”, for example, to suck at our mother’s breast when we are feed, at the moment we are born. We aren’t taught that, we don’t have to learn that response. It is “a priori” in the sense that it is present at birth but it is “biological knowledge”, for lack of a better word.

Okay, this would be close to innate knowledge. For the record, though, none of this is related to whether truth is correspondence to reality.

That said, I agree that one can be an empiricist and a dualist without logical contradictions.

Okay.

. . . I cannot say “this is true” or “this is false” without committing myself transcendentally to some discrete semantics for “true”. As you say, both, condition and consequent are predicated on our knowledge of truth. This is just a statement of the transcendental relationship I was point at concerning ‘true’ and interactions with the world that give meaning to that term.

I wasn’t the one who introduced the condition and the consequent, though. Allow me to demonstrate what I’m saying with a different illustration. The moon exists (I hope we agree on that! ). Yet, what the moon is is independent of our knowledge of the moon.

Hah. Well, yes. Nothing probitive to the state of reality, anyway. Even nonsense and incoherence be can be viewed as significant in some context.

The difference is that you’re making a positive truth-claim about some state of affairs.

It’s not, essentially. These are both expressions of isomorphism.

Are you using “isomorphism” merely in the sense of biological similarity, or in the sense of mathematical one-to-one correspondence?

The salient point there is that it doesn’t matter what you call it, the crucial piece, the piece which credulous faith in one’s intuition breaks, is the correlation of phenomena. Call it mapping, correspondence, isomorphics – doesn’t matter. What matters is the symmetry in the relationships of subjects and objection between a concept and an external context.

Well, I have no difficulty in accepting such a symmetry. The only difference we have on this point is on whether sense experience is our only reliable guide for knowledge, but even that is irrelevant with respect to correspondence proper.

But to say “God has meaning” in the context we have here in this thread is to equivocate, to overload the word with meanings extraneous to our question here. What does “God” mean in an existential context. What is the semantic cargo of “God” as an entity that exists (or not)? What does it mean for “God” to be?

Let’s just go with a simple definition. What is meaningless about the following? “God: eternal and unique First Cause, unlimited in power.”

“God” in that context, as the object of an existential analysis, is an empty, incoherent term. Meaningless.

Replace “God” with “verificationism.”

Right. In terms of avoiding logical/categorical errors, I’m right with you. I don’t think one should avoid dualist conclusions because it’s not logically possible, not a possible outcome in some possible world – it is that. Rather, it is a logical possibility, but one that just isn’t actually supported by the empirical evidence, and reasoned analysis thereupon.

I understand that’s your view, but that’s much different than saying dualism is “meaningless.” My question, then, would be: why should theistic dualism be an exception? If general dualism is meaningful, what makes theistic dualism so different as to be meaningless?

We are hard wired to do so. It’s not an option for a human, physiologically.

Okay, but how do you know we’re hardwired to do so?

Yeah, but if you take ideas seriously, the “hardness of the pill” doesn’t make that pill unreal.

No, of course not. Really I was just asking our of curiosity. It seems to me that a consistent rejection of theism ultimately does result in nihilism. Of course, I also believe that nihilism is demonstrably false.

I don’t think grounds for solipsism or nihilism obtain, not nearly. But If one is going to rule that out – or any of the other possibilities, including theism or atheism, just for reasons of taste and personal satisfaction, then give up immediately, and go play tennis or do the crossword or bring a meal to the elderly lady down the block, Serious thinking is a waste of one’s time if that’s the starting disposition.

It’s not that it’s a starting disposition, but just that there is no reason to accept solipsism/nihilism, and every reason to reject them. I’m a bit confused by your stating, “I don’t think grounds for solipsism or nihilism obtain, not nearly.” I was under the impression earlier that you were leaning toward accepting these views. Maybe I misunderstood, though.

Yes, but only because there’s no model that is more convincing, or even competitive. I don’t say “yes” in the sense that there is some metaphysical imperative that the world be thus; I’ve no basis to assert that.

First of all, what is your working definition of “metaphysics”?

 

[punkforchrist]

Touchstone:

It’s all provisional, though. All these axioms are assumed by science, but they are assumed provisionally. These axioms might be (er, might have been) disastrous toward science’s goals, for all we know. The world may be such that the Law of Identity and the Law of Non-contradiction are refuted as empirical laws, and are reduced to mere notions.

I can’t imagine anything more detrimental to science than a rejection of these axioms. If we reject them, then we can also not reject them!

It’s not a given that they must and will hold up, as science spins up. Science is very much a research program that takes (in part) those logical rules, and tests them as hypotheses.

Science doesn’t test these logical rules; it makes use of them in making various observations. I think you have it backwards.

They are just fundamental and beloved, which breeds a kind of affection for them. Like any intuition, though, they are not knowledge, and subject to being overthrown and discredited by experience.

If that were the case, then science (which is dependent on logic) doesn’t give us knowledge either. This means, given your own argument, that there is no knowledge. Of course, then we have the problem of “knowing that we don’t know.”

That makes no claim that needs justification. It doesn’t care a whit if you find that metaphysically grounded or not. It will judge itself empirically by it’s own results.

And those empirical results are meaningless unless we attach the law of identity to them.

No. Would you say a number divided by zero is “true (greater than zero)” or “false (*zero or less than zero)”?

It’s a malformed question. Dividing by zero is undefined. “Wrong” invests meaning and context that does not apply. Talking about God existing is the linguistic version of dividing by zero in math. It’s a full stop, a void. Undefined.

I think you’re missing the point. It is true that dividing by zero is undefined. Truth is basically like stepping on a stubborn bump in the carpet. If we suppress it in one place (“divided by zero is not greater/less than zero”), it just shows up somewhere else (“it is true that a number divided by zero is undefined”).

Yeah, I’ve been through this before on this forum. I’m not a subscriber to verificationism. Instead, I am a proponent of scientific realism, which brings with it strong discipline in terms of falsification, which is a fundamentally different epistemology to verificational approaches.

I’m afraid I’m still not understanding your position. Scientific realism requires correspondence and the objectivity of the laws of logic/mathematics. It states that science really can give us objective knowledge about the world.

But falsification as part of a scientific heuristic isn’t like that at all. It demands performs in terms of models, but always and only in an eliminative context; to be knowledge, it must not just perform, but be at practical risk of falsification and coming to discredit.

Restricting all knowledge to falsification also results in self-contradiction. For, “all beliefs must be capable of falsification” is itself incapable of being falsified, unless one has already established some unfalsifiable piece of knowledge. In that case, though, our proposition above is wrong, anyway.

Right. I am telling you your conception of God is a “squared circle” in several different aspects. The problem is, for one who prefers intuition over empirical evidence, it won’t convince you at all, because when it comes to God, a circle can be squared.

Actually, no. A circle cannot be squared, even by God.

Right. Insofar as one posits an immaterial will effecting material manipulations, you have a belief in magic.

Okay, so you’re saying, then, that all dualistic views require magic.

I don’t recognize ‘essence’ as a meaningful term here. What precisely do you mean by ‘essence’? I need that to give you a coherent answer.

An essence is just what something is.

But that’s just pouring our subjective labels over the physics. Gravity is gravity. Magic is magic. “Good magic” vs. “bad magic”, if it’s more than a figment of the imagination at all, is a function of the team jersey one is wearing.

Remember, I wasn’t the one who introduced the terms “good/bad magic.” Let’s leave those subjective labels aside. Any magic at all is something supernatural, but does not have its source in God. That’s why I gave the example of witchcraft. Witches, wiccans, and so forth, don’t claim their powers come from God, but from some other supernatural force.

This isn’t a matter of “I don’t want to call my God’s power ‘magic’, but I will say that about other peoples’ gods.” If someone of another non-Christian monotheistic faith, like Zoroastrianism, were to pray for a miracle, I wouldn’t consider that magic, either. It’s just that while “miracle versus magic” are both supernatural, there is a major distinction in intended source.

 

[greylorn]

Correspondence theory is the position that truth is the conformity between a notion in the intellect and objective reality. If and only if a notion of our mind actually exists in objective reality,then is a notion called “true”. This is most evident when we visualize the universe without observers, as what would have been called “truth” would just things that are in* being*. So when we say “X is true” we are saying “X is in being”, therefore “truth” and “being” are synonymous. Now since being is immaterial by virtue of it being purely actual, a materialist mind cannot know being, as even though the immaterial could interact with the physical, the physical cannot interact with the immaterial, therefore we cannot know being via our senses. Therefore it is the case that we cannot know truth – if one does not know what truth is, one cannot know if something is true – therefore the knowledge of truth in correspondence theory implies dualism.

Thoughts?

This was a test, right? You are completing a psych-201 assignment, which is to print some meaningless gobbledegook that elicits responses from nits who think that because you used arcane jargon in an obfuscating context, but included a few key words, you actually said something intelligent/

Did I guess right?

By way of proof that your statements are absurd, consider your sentence, “the physical cannot interact with the immaterial.” Light is immaterial, as are all forms of electromagnetic radiation. It interacts quite nicely with all components of the physical universe.

You may want to apologize for tricking the ignorant into taking you seriously. It would be the honorable thing to do.

 

[James_S_Saint]

This was a test, right? You are completing a psych-201 assignment, which is to print some meaningless gobbledegook that elicits responses from nits who think that because you used arcane jargon in an obfuscating context, but included a few key words, you actually said something intelligent/

Did I guess right?

By way of proof that your statements are absurd, consider your sentence, “the physical cannot interact with the immaterial.” Light is immaterial, as are all forms of electromagnetic radiation. It interacts quite nicely with all components of the physical universe.

You may want to apologize for tricking the ignorant into taking you seriously. It would be the honorable thing to do.

When Matthias says “immaterial” he is talking about what you would call the conceptual. Metaphysically speaking, the conceptual exists within a “universe of concepts” where things like perfect circles can exist even though they cannot exist physically. The 2 universes don’t interact. Truth is an issue of conceptual construction, not physical. The mind builds concepts into a picture of objective, physical reality in an effort to make a “map of the terrain” which is what “correspondence theory” is supposed to be about.