I've noticed that today you are likely to be labeled an anti-Semite for simply having beliefs that are not aligned with Jewish belief. It wasn't always this way. Given the low bar, I can see why some people will say it's on the rise.
I'm against abortion and transgenderism. I'm a Christian. I think Jewish people sometimes get it wrong and they need to face consequences. 10 years ago this didn't earn me the label, but today it does.
SteveK said: I've noticed that today you are likely to be labeled an anti-Semite for simply having beliefs that are not aligned with Jewish belief.
Well, I reckon there are enough people of dubious intelligence and/or character in the world for it to be possible to find some human who would sort of provide a sort of evidence (but not confirmation) for what "[you]'ve noticed", but what "[you]'ve noticed" does not generally qualify as anti-semitic, and what "[you]'ve noticed" apparently has nothing to do with the linked video.
Furthermore, the opinion at the first link you posted does not discuss anti-semitism. The title of that piece is not only prima facie atrociously wrong, but it is also atrociously wrong for not representing what is actually written in the article. The second link you provided has no anti-semitism in either the title or the article. So, uh, why was that one included? I mean, I can see why the first link might be included so long as the article hadn't actually been read, but I am missing entirely the point of the second link.
SteveK also said: I think Jewish people sometimes get it wrong and they need to face consequences.
What does that mean?!?!?! Not the get-it-wrong-part. Rather the consequences part. Disagreement is insufficient for anti-semitism, anti-semitism being the issue here. Surely you're not claiming that actual anti-semitism is some kind of consequence for some kind of something gotten wrong! As if anti-semitism is justified as a consequence?!
I wasn't going to read the first article but I did.
She claims that preventing her from getting an abortion is anti-semitic because it prevents her from practicing her religion. It may be a bad argument but it does support the claim in the title of her article. What I wasn't expecting was the Spanish Inquisition! I claim she's practicing anti-Catholicism!
The author of the first article Vicki Polin has apparently suffered trauma in the past, but also seems to have contributed to those looking to be anti-semitic.
Appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show In 1989, before founding the center, Polin was a guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show.[6][19][20] Appearing under a pseudonym,[6][19] she claimed that she was a survivor of a secret, Jewish Satanic cult, in which she, her family, and others had sacrificed babies to the devil.[6][7][19][20]
TLDR: Started in late 1800's in Germany related to immigration of Eastern European Jews to Germany and the following politics concerning only political rights of minorities. The definition grew to include hatred of Jews. Now with Israel being a majority Jewish state and the resulting clash with the minority Palestinians being non-Jewish, is Israel guilty of anti-anti-semitism?
bmiller said: She claims that preventing her from getting an abortion is anti-semitic because it prevents her from practicing her religion. It may be a bad argument but it does support the claim in the title of her article.
Nope. That does not support the claim in the title even though it is compatible with the claim in the title; compatibility is insufficient for support. But that's not really interesting. What is far more interesting is observing people wanting to read that article as having something to do with anti-semitism.
bmiller said: The author of the first article Vicki Polin has apparently suffered trauma in the past, but also seems to have contributed to those looking to be anti-semitic.
I really have no idea what the latter half of that sentence is supposed to mean. Even so, it seems to be closely related to one SteveK made: "I think Jewish people sometimes get it wrong and they need to face consequences." What information are those sentences supposed to convey?
EThere are different forms of anti-Semitism. I thnk there is a right-wing version and a left-wing version.. Leftist often see the Palestinians as "the oppressed" and the Israelis as "the oppressors," and ssnce, according the their extreme Woke ideology. the oppressed can do no wron and oppressors can do no right, the anti=Semitism encouraged by Hamas is justified.
What is interesting to me are the people that think there is something sinister about other people that read an article titled "Being Anti-abortion is being anti-semitic" (in which the author gives reasons for her claim) and conclude the article is about the author making a claim that being anti-abortion is being anti-semitic. It makes me think those people may be sinister.
What information are those sentences supposed to convey?
I won't speak for Steve, but what I meant was that someone telling people that some Jews sacrifice infants to Satan could confirm in some people's minds that the old "blood libel" anti-semitic theory was true. In fact that is exactly what the ADL claimed and demanded an apology from Oprah. Do I really have to explain this to you?
bmiller said: What is interesting to me are the people that think there is something sinister ...
Sinister? Really? HaHaHa! No, merely hard to figure out why anyone would find that author or that author's remarks particularly relevant to the topic of and matters of anti-Semitism.
bmiller said: ... could confirm in some people's minds that the old "blood libel" anti-semitic theory was true.
Oh. That's all? I guess it's worth observing people confirming the quality of their being by taking blood libel type remarks as evidence whether or not sufficient for confirmation. But that's so very commonplace. Even so, some stories of the commonplace are quite interesting for what they reveal about too much of human being. Here is a passage from p. 98 of Scott A. Shay's Conspiracy U:
Hugo Grotius, one of the wisest sixteenth-century thinkers to whom humanity is still deeply indebted, was confounded by the blood libels because they made no sense to him from his experience with Jews. yet that was what was written in authoritative books that he studied. So he too accepted blood libels as truth.
No, merely hard to figure out why anyone would find that author or that author's remarks particularly relevant to the topic of and matters of anti-Semitism.
OK. Since you claim no sinister intention, another possibility could be poor reading comprehension ability. I'm leaning in that direction because it seems you are perplexed by nearly everything you read.
As much as I'd like to help it would involve me writing things for you to read which we've seen won't actually help.
bmiller said: ... another possibility could be poor reading comprehension ability. I'm leaning in that direction because it seems you are perplexed by nearly everything you read.
Hmmm. The possibility of poor reading comprehension is what comes to your mind in response to the issue of why anyone would find that author or that author's remarks particularly relevant (or in any way worthwhile)? That indicates a far less developed ability to reason than I had been attributing to you. Excuse me for having been excessively charitable towards you. I understand how others having higher expectations for you than you can satisfy can seem oppressive, burdensome. My mistake. I should have realized your early FBI remark was supposed to be taken seriously, and then I would have realized that all you would have to offer is vacuous remarks following upon remarks of no substance.
Yes. I consider it poor reading comprehension when the reader claims the author's content was unrelated to the author's title when the author's content clearly explains why she made the claim. As I mentioned, it may not have been a good argument, but that is different from claiming the content was unrelated to the title.
However, you're beginning to persuade me that my first impression was correct since you are now claiming your complaint is that the article was not " particularly relevant (or in any way worthwhile)" rather than the title and content were unrelated according to the author.
Your excessive charity has been noted and as you've pointed out you've done your best to make it seem oppressive. But don't worry, I have born the burden of nasty nuts posting insults at me in the past rather than choosing to have a rational discussion. I'll make it through my day.
Should a tenured professor be removed from a university for holding holocaust-denial opinions personally but unrelated to what he teaches?
Don't know if you were specifically asking Victor, but my answer is if it's a private university, they can do whatever they want, but if it's a public university, then nope. That should not be grounds in of itself for removal.
The question was to anyone who wants to give an opinion.
I can understand why you say a private institution can do that, but why not a public institution? Holding and expressing that opinion is definitely anti-semitic.
bmiller said: ... nasty nuts posting insults at me in the past rather than choosing to have a rational discussion.
Is "nut" really the correct word choice when all I did was ignore the recommendation to not cast before swine? Isn't that more foolish than nut-like? Be that as it may, so far there has been no evidence provided indicating that you are capable of rational discussion (at least on this topic). I will proceed despite that.
bmiller said: ... it may not have been a good argument ...
The article did not present an argument; what it did present might be called an argument fragment inasmuch as it has at least one passage which could be used in an actual argument (regardless of whether it would be a good or bad or interesting or not argument). The gist of the article is found in this paragraph:
This issue of being anti-abortion comes from a Christian perspective. According to the constitution of the United States there is supposed to be a separation of Church and State. By creating laws which ban women from ending a pregnancy is imposing the Christian belief system onto those who practice other faiths, along with women who are unaffiliated to any religion.
There is nothing in that paragraph which ties it to any sense of anti-Semitism; there is nothing in the rest of the article which ties that paragraph to any sense of anti-Semitism. Indeed, whatever is supposed to be included under the term anti-Semitism, I expect there would have to be some prejudice against Jews (no matter the rationalization for the prejudice). Accordingly, for that article to be an article actually about anti-Semitism, it would be necessary for that article to make some tie in with a prejudice against Jews or Judaism or Jewish philosophical interpretations or what have you. There is nothing in this article which indicates as motivation a prejudice specifically against Jews. In fact, the article itself notes that there are any number of other religious and non-religious perspectives at odds with the particular Christian anti-abortion perspective - - meaning the article does not claim that a prejudice against Jews is the impetus for the Christian anti-abortion perspective. What this argument fragment works best at would be in a class for 13 - 15 year olds being introduced to the notion that constitutional rights (such as that regarding religion) can remain intact and valid even if there are limits to such rights.
Moving on ... even if it were assumed for the sake of argument that the article was about anti-Semitism, then what does the article indicate about anti-Semitism? The answer is: ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. It remains unfathomable as well as unexplained why anyone would link to such an article in a discussion which was apparently about anti-Semitism. It remains a curiosity why someone whose response to the very topic of anti-Semitism was a reference to the FBI would also insist that such a poor quality article was about anti-Semitism without ever bothering to even try to show in what way that article was informative about anti-Semitism or why it was worth linking to that of all articles in an anti-Semitism discussion.
Actually it was nasty nut. Nasty because instead of engaging in a reasonable argument to begin with you immediately started attacking people's character and intelligence. It seems you don't like it when it is done to you. Go figure.
Now it seems you actually want to discuss your reasons for concluding the author had no intention of accusing pro-life people of being anti-semitic in her article titled "Being anti-abortion is being antisemitic" and she gave no reasons? Well after reading your analysis, it seems you are merely claiming that what she considers "antisemitic" does not line up with what you consider "antisemitic". Aside from the discussion of whether she made a good argument or bad one, I take SteveK's remark to imply that the meaning of the word has changed over time and now we see the accusation being leveled for reasons never used before. If her definition gains more acceptance then the definition will have once more changed as it has in the past as I pointed out in the article I linked to above.
Moving on...
First of all, I did not link to the article in question. I had no intention of reading it until you made such overblown claims. I disputed your claim that she did not intend to accuse people of antisemitism by paraphrasing her argument.
I mocked her for her anti-Catholic claims, which you apparently are not perturbed by. Aside from your silly insistence that she use your definitions or what she says is meaningless, that was my point. To show the irony of someone making accusations of anti-semitism by being anti-Catholic.
Second of all it appears that SteveK was complaining about people accusing him of anti-semitism because of his religious beliefs, which is a reasonable conclusion for those reading the article. 10 years ago these types of accusations were not in the mainstream he claims.
Third, why does it bother you that I joke about the FBI. I'm a Catholic and the FBI thinks trad Catholics need to be under surveillance. Is anti-Catholicism OK but anti-semitism is not?
Holding and expressing that opinion is definitely anti-semitic.
That's an interesting assertion, because I would say no it isn't.
I knew a guy many years ago who was rather fond of conspiracy theories in general, and while it's been too long for me to recall the details, he spoke of something along the lines of a census taken after WWII concluded. Supposedly this census was able to account for every casualty, but there was roughly a six million figure discrepancy between claimed casualties and accounted casualties. Maybe the Holocaust never happened!
Now, his being fond of conspiracy theories in general, coupled with never hearing him say a thing negatively about Jews specifically, I would disagree that it is automatically anti-semitic for someone to sniff out a "plot" and latch onto it. The alleged existence of the plot itself is the draw.
It's a similar thing for us here in the south, we have a bunch of yahoos running around with Confederate flags, and those with whom I've bothered to strike up conversation never say "Golly I wish slavery was back and our towns all white!" Rather, they are focused on the "rebel" part, their motivation one of anti-Washington, federal-government-too-big sentiment. Those sentiments hold strong here even without the flags.
Now I would agree that such things could be argued as ignorantly insensitive, like those who wear Che Guevara shirts but ignore the bloody parts. But being ignorantly insensitive, even in cases where everyone can agree ignorant insensitivity has occurred, is protected by free speech, which is good in a world where many say that disagreeing with gender ideology is ignorantly insensitive at best, and outright bigoted at worst.
On topic with one of the articles, I've heard plenty of times that being pro-life is sexist and anti-women and patriarchal and blah blah blah. Well no it isn't. Being opposed to killing the unborn is opposition to killing the unborn, not anti-women and not anti-semitic. Your beef has to actually be toward that group before you are bigoted toward that group.
That's an interesting assertion, because I would say no it isn't.
The Government says different:
https://www.state.gov/defining-antisemitism/
Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g. gas chambers) or intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany and its supporters and accomplices during World War II (the Holocaust
So you can expect the FBI to be keeping a closer eye on you now :-O
Antisemitic acts are criminal when they are so defined by law (for example, denial of the Holocaust or distribution of antisemitic materials in some countries).
bmiller said: ... attacking people's character and intelligence. It seems you don't like it when it is done to you.
Hmmm. Assertion without evidence. The fact that you are a delicate snowflake is accepted and will get no further comment.
bmiller said: ... it seems you are merely claiming that what she considers "antisemitic" does not line up with what you consider "antisemitic".
Whoa! Stop right there. Provide her definition of anti-Semitic. Hopefully you will have something other than your assumption that she composed the title. If that's all you have, then you have less than zero even if she came up with that title, because at the very least you should be able to note how, uh, eccentric such a "definition" would be.
Responses to rest of your remarks will follow later.
I've also noticed that you'll get into a lot of trouble if you say something that is anti-Semitic, but you'll get a pat on the back if you say something that is anti-White. You don't have to do anything, just say the words. Holding a sign that says "White Lives Matter" will get you on the naughty list at the FBI. This world is F'ckd up even more than it was. "Clown World" is a good descriptor.
Oh. So you like getting your character and intelligence attacked. Duly noted. You make it so easy.
Whoa! Stop right there. Provide her definition of anti-Semitic.
Why should I. She provided her definition in the article. Its the part you disagree with. It seems you have never heard of begging the question. The question is what should or should not be part of the definition of anti-semitism. You are merely assuming she is wrong and you are right. Here you go:
BTW, I'm guessing you've never set foot on a farm. Those things in your hand that you claim are pearls you're casting before swine? You got them from the sheep pen. They aren't really pearls. :-)
An internet posting referred to a video described as regarding increased occurrences of anti-Semitism and that alleged trend was asserted to be disturbing.
The first reply by Respondent 1 (R1) was reference to FBI spying, apparently for some rationale supposedly related to R1 being "a Catholic and the FBI thinks trad[itional] Catholics need to be under surveillance." R1 indicates that this surveillance is "anti-Catholic"; R1 also claims to have "mocked [the author of an article to which another respondent referred (see below)] for her anti-Catholic claims" where it can only be assumed that those allegedly anti-Catholic claims regard a disparaging depiction of the Spanish Inquisition. R1 steadfastly refuses to attribute content to the word anti-Semitic, and when it is noted that the word at least indicates some prejudice against Jews, R1 simply announces "that the meaning of the word [anti-Semitism] has changed over time" without either recognizing or explicitly denying that anti-Semitism at least indicates some sort of prejudice against Jews.
Unlike R1, Respondent 2 (R2) at least concocts a reply which can be imagined as appearing to be actually almost relevant. The link to the video was highlighted as "Antisemitism on the rise", even though the MSNBC video itself is titled "... on monitoring and combatting antisemitism"; the video itself spends little time on the claim that there is an increase of anti-Semitism and more time on the nature of anti-Semitism (even though there is little in-depth analysis provided). In any event, R2 says that the term anti-Semitism is used differently than it used to be, presumably more widely, and presumably that is intended as some sort of retort to the notion that anti-Semitic incidents are on the rise. According to personal testimony of R2, "anti-Semitic" is a label currently applied "likely ... for simply having beliefs that are not aligned with Jewish belief." R2 does not provide evidence that his interpretation of his experience is in any way relevant to the ADL claim in the video that anti-Semitic incidents are more frequent occurrences. R2 then linked to an article [the one referenced above in the R1 summary] about a Christian anti-abortion perspective as well as another article interested in centuries-old thinking about "nonbinary gender" individuals. Apparently R2 thinks that at least with regards to "abortion and transgenderism ... Jewish people sometimes get it wrong and they need to face consequences."
Analysis:
R1 has affected pretensions to rationality but is hardly capable of even rationalization. R1 is an intractably blinkered tribalist, and R2 also exhibits a tribalism. The Principle of Philosophical Charity seems anathema to both R1 and R2. In this case, both appear keenly devoted to presenting claims about even the very concept of anti-Semitism in the most unfavorable light. R1 and R2 are most aptly described in terms of disinterest, and/or implied belittlement of, and/or distaste for the very concept of anti-Semitism, and that would explain why they avoid actual engagement. R2's reflexive association of anti-Semitism with the idea that "Jewish people ... need to face consequences" puts R2 in infamous company.
Conclusion:
The noted tribalism is sufficient in itself to make it impossible for either R1 or R2 to qualify under Bereshit 18:24-33 (Rev).
I was planning on presenting a defense of the second half of my claim of you being a nasty nut since the first part had been conclusively proven. But I see now that you've done my work for me yourself. Thank you.
It is apparent to me now that you were not serious that it does not bother you to be mocked. So I apologize for mocking your "pearl before swine" insult. It also seems to me that you have a lot of anger and hate and perhaps that gets in the way of you being able to conduct calm, rational, respectful discussions. So I apologize for calling you a nut. It may just have been your anger talking.
Regardless, I wish the best for all Jewish people.
I offer this traditional liturgical blessing:
Let us also pray for the Jews: That our God and Lord may illuminate their hearts, that they acknowledge Jesus Christ is the Savior of all men. (Let us pray. Kneel. Rise.) Almighty and eternal God, who want that all men be saved and come to the recognition of the truth, propitiously grant that even as the fullness of the peoples enters Thy Church, all Israel be saved. Through Christ Our Lord. Amen.
It has been my experience that some people "see" oppression and justified grievances where none objectively exist. For instance, you are a white male heterosexual Christian and so merely that fact means you are an oppressor regardless of your intentions, grading math tests as having correct or incorrect answers is racist and so on. Reason itself is under attack as racist if it does not align with one's "lived experience". Have the underlying foundations of the philosophy of the Left led to its own undermining?
Are there any efforts within the Left to resist this? Your very own "Argument From Reason" is prey. If you are a Christian, you are a tribalist. Do you have any reasonable explanation for anyone to remain in system?
"Your very own "Argument From Reason" is prey. " The so-called "argument from reason" is prey, ironically, to anyone who applies sound reasoning to it. Left or right is irrelevant.
The argument from reason. EAAN The argument from psychophysical harmony.
All depend on profoundly disjointed misunderstandings of biological evolution and the fundamentals of how biological physiology functions generally.
On the prevailing scientific model of evolution one would expect to find real living philosophical zombies, that is, organisms that go about sensing and reacting with no conscious awareness of their motor or other functions, so such "arguments" go.
Well, yes, and that is just what we find. Nearly all life is robotic. Plants, single celled organisms, and even fairly complex animals are biological robots.
You are mostly a biological robot. You have trillions of cells and you have no conscious awareness of what any of them are doing individually. Prior to modern science you would not have been aware that you even had cells at all.
The vast majority of your body and brain activity is not available to your conscious awareness. Your consciousness is just a tiny fragmentary tip on a vast mountain of brain activity that is not examinable by you.
On the scientific model of evolution one would expect to select for utility of reproduction, not truth. Yes, again, that is just what we find.
People believe a very great many things that are not true, or have you not noticed that?
Such "arguments" ask how we can trust that we are sensing and reasoning to truth? Very simple. We can't. Isn't that obvious?
The experiences of qualia are hallucinatory, not the truth of an external reality, merely internally manufactured fantasies that have selection utility, just as one would expect on the scientific model of biological evolution.
The utility of our qualia hallucinations is that they map as highly stylized, approximated, and inaccurate correlates to an external reality.
If I punch a brick wall there really is some stuff there. The qualia experiences associated with the process are hallucinatory, and my perceptions of the wall and my fist and the motions involved are both highly inaccurate and mostly robotic, but my experiences of the process correlate to a physical reality to a sufficient degree as to provide a reproductive advantage, and that is the linkage between our highly inaccurate, stylized, and hallucinatory qualia experiences and truth.
There is truth.
Truth is the ontological reality of the cosmos, what really exists, whatever that is at base. That is the truth. The true underlying reality is bedrock truth.
Our experiences form a set of highly stylized trendline approximations of that vastly complex truth.
We do not see or hear or feel truth, only a very rough approximation of it, but a causally linked correlated approximation, and it is that causally linked correlation that is a selection benefit, and has thus been selected for in biological evolution.
For most organisms their activities are simple enough that purely robotic zombie reactions are sufficient, and that is in fact what most life is.
But the more complex the system over time and space and activities, the more complex control mechanisms are required. That is how feelings such as pain and pleasure evolved.
So why not evolve pain to associate with sex and pleasure to associate with bodily injury but simply have sex in spite of the pain and avoid bodily injury in spite of the pleasure? Because that would be a conflict of control that would be a selection disadvantage as compared to psychophysical harmonization.
If one can avoid bodily injury in spite of pleasure it would be simpler to just not have any sensation at all and just robotically avoid bodily injury. That is fine for simple organisms, and that is just what we observe for simple organisms, but complex organisms benefit from an additional layer of control.
Pleasure seeking and pain avoiding are higher level, longer term, behavioral influencing control factors that layer on top of the simplistic short term robotic processes. Their absence or their psychophysical disharmony are a selection disadvantage compared to conscious and psychophysically harmonized physiologies.
Semantic error may provide the illusion of never being wrong to those engaged in it, but unfortunately misusing words and terms does not alter the concepts behind the original meaning. Even if a true semantic shift is underway, the existence of multiple active and contradictory definitions is an impediment to actual communication unless one carefully distinguishes one's usage (unless ambiguity is the intent).
In contrast, asserting a semantic error as the one true meaning, without qualification, particularly while the vast majority of the word's historical and modern usage contradicts the error, simply makes one look foolish.
"If I call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?" Depends if you still call a leg a leg.
Also, since you called that appendage a leg do you call all appendages legs? Is an ear a leg as well?
And what sort of dog? The typical dog, not considered generally to suffer from an appendage anomaly or pathology?
People coin terms from time to time. Also, from time to time terms that were considered limited by most are later considered to have a much broader scope and application than had previously been commonly thought.
Where is your qualia experience of, for example, yellow?
Is your experience of yellow a property of a banana?
If you heard violins playing in C minor every time you looked at a banana would violin music be a property of the banana?
Bryan Magee had a series called "Men of Ideas". "Men" being a dated term by now, but nearly all the philosophers of history we know of were, men. Times change, terms change, but those men of ideas reasoned their way to the understanding, long ago, that our access to extramental reality is only through our senses, and those senses never tell us the ultimate truth.
"Men of Ideas" have realized for centuries that our senses provide only some rough approximated correlate to extramental truth. But, still, the average person still scoffs, filled with the confidence born of ignorance that the senses are somehow conveying truth.
Your sense experiences, that is, your qualia experiential process, is entirely hallucinatory.
Qualia experiences are entirely manufactured internally. There is no yellow somehow out there. If you ever gain the insight to be among the "Men of Ideas" you will come to understand that clear and obvious fact. More likely, you will remain among the ignorant "vast majority".
You say all that, yet by the concept that the definition of hallucination describes, you're still wrong. And that's not even getting into the wrong use of p-zombies.
Indeed. Most people say things like "bananas are yellow".
One philosopher I read explained that a blue chair has the property of being blue, but painting the chair red changes the chair to having the property of being red.
It did not seem to dawn on that philosopher, or the average person, that the experience of any particular color is entirely an internally manufactured hallucination.
Many attempts have been made to show that naturalism (materialism) is somehow self refuting. Such arguments typically get a few things correct, but then get all jumbled up with disjointed and confused expressions of nonsensical assertions.
That is what happened to Lewis in Miracles. Later Plantinga made similar facepalm style arguments with EAAN. Now there is the similarly absurd argument from psychophysical harmony making the rounds as some supposedly new and great argument.
What such arguments get right are a few points about evolution. 1.On naturalistic biological evolution there is no need for pain or consciousness, only robotic zombie reactions to sense data. That is correct for nearly all life.
Yes, nearly all life is robotic, and mechanistic. About 95% of biomass is made up of plants and bacteria. Other forms of life are also robotic.
2.On naturalistic biological evolution there is no need to perceive total truth, only an indication beneficial to reproduction. That is also correct.
So, if you look at a banana and instead of seeing yellow you hear a pleasant tune, but when you look at a rock you hear an irritating noise, you don't need to know that there is no tune coming from the banana and there is no noise coming from the rock. All you need to know is that eating the thing that produces the pleasant tune is good and eating the thing that produces the irritating noise is bad. The truth of the sounds is irrelevant to their selection advantage utility.
The fact that such sounds are entirely hallucinatory is irrelevant to their utility.
Such hallucinatory qualia are just internally generated arbitrary symbols, which derive their utility not from the truth value of the qualia experience but by reliable association with real external arrangements of material.
Supposing you always wear VR goggles, and there is a camera that feeds an AI processor such that you never see faces, only colorful patterns uniquely assigned to each face by the AI, but randomly generated in shapes and colors. That would be enough to function.
The experience of the randomly generated shapes and colors would be hallucinatory, but so long as those hallucinations were consistently associated with real external collections of material the hallucinations would have selection value.
The experience of the randomly generated shapes and colors would be hallucinatory, but so long as those hallucinations were consistently associated with real external collections of material the hallucinations would have selection value.
If it is consistently associated with real external collections of material, it is, by definition, not a hallucination. The way you are using the word, it wouldn't have ever existed.
You're throwing out all these brain processes, but that's not the issue. It doesn't matter if the color yellow exists or how the brain functions, whether it's completely real or magic or a complex biological model, whether the mind is somehow distinct from the brain or not, or whether the young earth creationists actually got it right on evolution. The word "hallucination" describes a concept, not a process.
We aren't disagreeing on how the brain works. We are disagreeing on taking a word that means "not associated with real external collections of material" and applying it to the exact opposite concept, which renders the word completely useless. And if it's useless, what's the point in using it?
There are better terms for what you and Anil Seth are describing than "hallucination". As is, you're just misusing the word and obscuring clear concepts.
Here is a paper with better terminology. At no point do they describe the process as a hallucination, but rather illusion. A much wiser approach, all can agree, since an illusion is a false perception but still based on an external trigger, unlike a hallucination.
In this work, through a phenomenological analysis, we studied the perception of the chromatic illusion and illusoriness. The necessary condition for an illusion to occur is the discovery of a mismatch/disagreement between the geometrical/physical domain and the phenomenal one.
Since geometry is unrelated to color, and we are considering this from a geometrical standpoint, color is therefore an illusion. Why waste so many words when you can just say this?
Here is one deffinition of hallucinationa: "A hallucination is a perception in the absence of an external stimulus that has the qualities of a real perception."
There is no external stimulus of yellow, or sweet, that is, the experience itself. There is no such experience somehow out there that we are approximating in a realistic manner.
Our spatial perceptions are not hallucinations, rather, they are approximations of real external material. Thus, our spatial perceptions are both untruthful and realistic.
A spatial perception is not the truth in the sense that if you write 99.9 on a math test when the answer should be 100 you will get the answer marked as wrong.
But if you answer 15.1 for 15, and 28.97 for 29, and 2899 for 2900 then we can say that your method of approximation is realistic, that is, your approximation method closely tracks the truth over a wide range of circumstances.
Yellow or red or sweet are not like that. There is no such thing as color or taste out there to be approximated in any way. Qualia experiences are fully hallucinatory, merely made up symbols that are arbitrarily associated with external realities, or not.
I realize this is very difficult to accept for most people because our sensory experiences seem so real.
Consider Symbol Index Icon
"Symbols are arbitrary and unmotivated, reliant on conventional usage to determine meaning." https://csmt.uchicago.edu/glossary2004/symbolindexicon.htm#:~:text=Of%20Peirce's%20many%20ways%20of,weathervane%20or%20a%20thermometer)%3B
Our qualia experiences are symbols, wholly made up internally with no extramental reality, arbitrary only have meaning by conventional association.
Our spatial perceptions are icons with modeled topological similarity to extramental real arrangements of real material.
"which renders the word completely useless." On the contrary, the use of "hallucination" in this context is to emphasize that qualia experiences are arbitrary symbols, not icons of an extramental reality.
"The necessary condition for an illusion to occur is the discovery of a mismatch/disagreement between the geometrical/physical domain and the phenomenal one."
A disconnection is not a mismatch, it is no match. There is no extramental physical domain of the qualia experience of color.
By the above meaning of "illusion" looking at yourself in a funhouse mirror would be a spatial illusion, a distorted version of an extramental reality.
Color is not a distorted version of an extramental reality. There is no extramental reality of the qualia experience of color.
This is an interesting exchange Victor had some years back, as noted above. https://ralphriver.blogspot.com/2007/01/she-obliterated-me-as-apologist-lewis.html
The criticisms of Lewis by Anscombe were by no means comprehensive. Lewis had written so sloppily that the supposed "argument" from reason was just a meandering and poorly expressed rumination, certainly not anything remotely resembling a sound philosophical argument.
All Anscombe did was point out a few of the more obvious problems with the "argument" from reason that Lewis presented.
The core absurdities persist in: The argument from reason EAAN The argument from psychophysical harmony
All fail to understand even the rudiments of materialistic claims regarding truth, knowledge, perception, and biological evolution.
A few things to keep in mind while reviewing such arguments for the supposed self-contradiction of materialism. 1.Science is provisional. Science does not do proof. 2.Our senses do not provide truth, only a rough correlation or symbolic association with extramental reality. 3.Nearly all life is robotic. 4.You are mostly robotic, with consciousness of feelings or ideas being just a fragmentary and tiny tip of a mountain of your physiology. 5.People do in fact believe a great many false notions. 6.Natural selection has a connection to extramental truth to the extent that having some fairly realistic approximation of extramental truth is often a reproductive advantage.
I realize this is very difficult to accept for most people because our sensory experiences seem so real.
Again, the issue is not one of process, but of classification. I don't see the color yellow if I don't look at a banana or bottle of mustard, for example. Those perceptions occur based on light wavelength entering my eye. If my brain randomly assigned yellow to objects or fields of view in an unreliable, unrepeatable fashion, with no correlation to anything I'm looking at, then sure, that would be hallucination. As is, it's more illusion. It's based on an external trigger even if it's not accurate.
Regarding the argument from reason, I've never understood its appeal.
There is no extramental reality of the qualia experience of color.
You would be wrong about that. The mind, via the eye, is translating wavelength to color. If you don't see color then medical science says you have a problem. Medical science doesn't say there's nothing there to translate into color. Medical science also wouldn't say that there's no correct or incorrect way for your mind/eye to translate that wavelength because then you would be saying there's no correct way for your eyes and mind to function. Only dumb people like you say the things that you say - because you are locked into an eliminative materialistic hellscape where you have to constantly remind yourself that you are living in the matrix.
It should come as no surprise that dogs, cats, and sheep translate wavelength differently because they have different eyes and minds. A black & white TV set translates the signal differently than a color TV set which translates it differently than a radio. Only dumb people would say there's nothing being translated or there's no correct way to translate.
Does the AFR essentially say that final causality and intentionality are necessary features of rationality, so if blind forces are causing the mind to function 'at base' (tee hee) then we can't expect our minds to actually be rational? Makes sense to me but what do I know. Maybe blind quantum forces self-organize into intentionality that designs and builds Teslas and nanoscale computer chips - and performs its own quality control. Seemingly there's nothing blind forces can't do.
"I don't see the color yellow if I don't look at a banana or bottle of mustard, for example." Really? You never dream of colors? You never imagine colors? You never experience shapes of colors even with your eyes covered or in pitch dark?
Well, perhaps not, but I do.
"Medical science doesn't say there's nothing there to translate into color." There is something out there, but it is not a sort of color to be translated.
One sort of word can be translated into another sort of word. There is no sort of color to be translated into the qualia experience of color. The qualia experience of color is entirely internally manufactured and arbitrary. Color is a symbol, not an icon. We then arbitrarily assign the symbol to the extramental real phenomena. Once assigned the consistent assignment does not make the assignment objective, rather, the association remains arbitrarily assigned, but the same arbitrary assignment is used consistently.
For example, it is arbitrary to assign a particular playing card as having a higher value in a particular game. But that arbitrary assignment can be consistently applied while remaining an arbitrary assignment.
" Only dumb people would say there's nothing being translated or there's no correct way to translate." There is something. A fundamental provisional postulate of science is that our senses are responding to some sort of real extramental phenomena that are characteristic of some sort of real beables.
Colors are not a translation between similar sorts of things. Color is an entirely arbitrary internally manufactured hallucinatory qualia experience. That internally manufactured experience is a symbol that is then arbitrarily assigned to the real extramental phenomena. Once arbitrarily assigned the symbol is consistently associated with similar sorts of external phenomena under consistent conditions, but that association can be easily tricked and fooled and distorted once the mechanisms of symbol assignment are better understood.
There is no "correct" way to translate. Your experience of color might be vastly different than my experience of color. Such differences are demonstrable. Yet, neither of us is somehow "correct" or "incorrect" merely because our experiences of qualia are so different. Neither of us can have a "correct" or "incorrect" assignment of internal symbology to extramental phenomena because that assignment is equally arbitrary at base for both of us.
A purpose of the argument is to show that naturalism as a worldview is self-refuting. For that to be successful, someone committed to the claims of naturalism would have to hit a wall in which naturalism has no answer. I don't think this argument gives them much trouble.
For example, the faculty of rationality, per naturalism, can arise via natural selection over millions of years, in which neural processes which produce more accurate perceptions of the external world lead to a higher survival rate, and then that is passed onto the offspring. In this regard, rational thinking is simply the ability to receive inputs and produce "true" outputs, which can be independently tested for veracity. And per emergent properties, the subcomponents themselves do not have to possess a particular trait in order for the proper arrangement of those subcomponents to possess it. A brain cell has no "rationality" organelles, but a brain made of those cells has the capacity for rational thinking.
That said, I admit I have not read deeply into any sort of exchange in which the argument is put to the test, so what I wrote above as the naturalist perspective is possibly superficial. If the argument gets hashed out further to answer those objections, I'd be happy to read it.
If stories are all it takes to avoid a logical conclusion then what you said here is all you need. Naturalists have many stories. At issue is the question, can rationality and will be fully explained in terms of nonrational causes? There are many stories that will say "yes it can" but what does the logic of their metaphysics say?
What is the nature of rationality and what is human agency (will)? What is their Principle of Proportionate Causality, or do they even have one? Emergence, it seems to me, isn't limited by anything, as a matter of principle. Quantum matter can produce galaxies, rationality and nanoscale microchips. That's a nice story but I'm not buying it. Naturalists need to lay out their metaphysics and explain how it all fits together so that "yes it can" makes sense. I have not seen anything from them that makes sense.
"Do you see a different, random color every time you look at a specific object?" Do you consider the ranking of playing cards to be randomized with every hand you are dealt?
You are conflating the consistent assignment of an arbitrary symbol with the symbol itself not being arbitrary.
"you do not see random colors." The qualia experience of color is itself an arbitrary internally generated symbol. The consistent association of that arbitrary internally generated symbol makes that symbol no less arbitrary.
"By definition, not a hallucination." By definition, the perception that there is some sort of extramental object is not a hallucination, but the symbol arbitrarily associated with that extramental object is an hallucination, by definition.
I have given you the tools to make the distinction between the thing itself and the hallucinatory symbol arbitrarily assigned to that real thing. Whether you choose to open your mind enough to grasp that knowledge is up to you.
"At issue is the question, can rationality and will be fully explained in terms of nonrational causes?" Nature is intrinsically rational.
Natural causes are not non-rational.
The google god tells us... "Generative AI is experimental. Learn more:
According to The Philosophy Forum, a rational inference requires insight into logical relations. A process of reasoning is rational only if the reasoner sees that Q follows from P"
On deterministic naturalism Q always follows from P. Causality is mechanistic. If P then Q is how naturalistic deterministic materialist causality intrinsically works at base.
That is why mathematics is so successful at describing nature. Mathematics is a form of logic, perhaps the most rigorous form of rationality. Logic describes nature so well because nature is intrinsically logical, and therefore intrinsically rational.
We use a formalized system of notation to describe that Q follows from P because we are composed of elements that progress with the intrinsic modality that Q follows from P.
You might be familiar with the NAND gate. It is a very simple logical element that can be described with a simple truth table or expression. Q = Not (A and B) Meaning, Q is equal to the inverse of a logical AND of A and B.
An entire computer can be built from just NAND gates, in principle. In fact, all the computers running all the software on Earth can, in principle, be built from NAND gates.
As a matter of fact, all the computers on Earth are built from even simpler elements than NAND gates. The vast complexities of AI and all the rest are the "emergent" results of myriad simple rational elements.
Rationality requires that Q follows from P.
In nature, at base, Q does follow from P.
Therefore the Argument From Reason is based on an unrealistic question, that of non-rational causes. There is no such thing as a non-rational cause. Causation is intrinsically rational. On deterministic naturalism all causation requires that Q always follows from P, the very essence of rationality.
Nature is intrinsically rational. Natural causes are not non-rational.
Responses like this are why you fail to convince very many people. It's as irrational as can be. Water flowing down a hill = rational. Chemical reactions = rational. It's all nonsense.
If the argument gets hashed out further to answer those objections, I'd be happy to read it.
Victor assumes that a foundational principle of naturalism is that all there is is just random particles in motion. If one claims that there is order of some sort, that contradicts that particular principle. Rational thought is an orderly process that detects order in the universe and so to believe that rational thought tells us something about the universe would be to contradict the foundational principle. It doesn't matter if you call predictable things "evolution" or "emergent properties" they are still predictable and orderly to some extent and therefore not merely random particles in motion.
In fact to come to the conclusion that the universe is random using reason demonstrates that the universe is not random since your reasoning is not random.
the symbol arbitrarily associated with that extramental object is an hallucination, by definition.
Except the symbol is only triggered by an external source, a particular light wavelength. Not a hallucination. By definition.
You do understand what concepts and definitions and language are, don't you? Or is this some sort of reductionist materialism thing where you deny those exist and just say whatever you want?
In fact to come to the conclusion that the universe is random using reason demonstrates that the universe is not random since your reasoning is not random.
I'm not sure all naturalists would agree that the processes are "random".
Common usage definitions have their limitations, but nobody here seems willing or able to provide a definition of "rational" for the claim of "non-rational". ra·tion·al /ˈraSH(ə)nəl/ 1. based on or in accordance with reason or logic.
So, yes, water flowing down a hill is in accordance with logic. Q follows from P. If water is up the hill and if it is released then it will flow down the hill. There is order to the cosmos. Causality is in accordance with logic, at base.
Therefore causality is rational at base.
There is no such thing as illogical causality. All real possibilities are also logical possibilities.
Therefore there is no such thing as a non-rational cause, making the AFR a non-starter.
I'm not sure all naturalists would agree that the processes are "random".
I think you're correct to put "random" in scare quotes in this instance. It depends on how they use the word.
If things happen always or for the most part in particular ways, then that means they don't happen randomly or by chance. Any recognizable process is not random. It has a recognizably predictable beginning, middle and end. I don't think anyone can rationally deny this.
It seems they are using a more restricted use of the term to mean something like "predictable but not designed by God". Which of course is not a scientific statement at all but a theological statement.
Or is this some sort of reductionist materialism thing where you deny those exist and just say whatever you want?
Every argument she puts forth can be cataloged and put into book form with the title: The Argument From Equivocation. She routinely abuses language which only serves to produce a so-called argument that is muddled and incoherent. Water flowing downhill being "rational" is the most recent example.
Common usage definitions have their limitations, but nobody here seems willing or able to provide a definition of "rational" for the claim of "non-rational".
Flowing water being rational is a telling assertion for a few reasons.
When speaking of rationality, most are speaking of a mental process. By this definition, the only way flowing water can be rational is to either assert the presence of a mind within the water, or perhaps to say when one thinks of flowing water and the associated factors around it, then one would rationally expect water to flow downhill. The reality of the flowing water matches rational expectation.
Of course if one defines rationality as as such that flowing water is rational because it operates in accordance with physics, then literally everything made of matter and energy that exists in the universe is rational and nothing is irrational. What we call irrational behavior or beliefs are perfectly rational because the mental states producing the behavior/beliefs are operating in accordance with the laws of physics. So much like hallucination, we have defined irrationality out of existence.
The other problem with this usage of rationality is it isn't engaging Victor's argument, as that is not the way he or Lewis are using it, as far as I can tell. Redefining a word does not defeat an argument.
"The other problem with this usage of rationality is it isn't engaging Victor's argument, as that is not the way he or Lewis are using it, as far as I can tell." Can you tell?
Lewis wrote so sloppily that even a fellow Christian philosopher dismembered his "argument", which was more like a meandering screed as written in Miracles.
Can you tell what "rational" versus "non-rational" is supposed to mean? How is one to engage in such a sloppy and undefined polemic?
"...then literally everything made of matter and energy that exists in the universe is rational and nothing is irrational." The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unreasonable_Effectiveness_of_Mathematics_in_the_Natural_Sciences
Maths describe real causal progressions. Mathematics is a form of logic. Therefore real causal progressions are logical.
We can think logically because we are composed of elements that progress in intrinsically logical ways.
"The other problem with this usage of rationality is it isn't engaging Victor's argument," How so, I mean, what is Victor's argument? It is so vague and sloppily worded that one is reduced to looking up words in the dictionary just to try to figure out what he is even trying to say.
Consider: bmiller "Victor assumes that a foundational principle of naturalism is that all there is is just random particles in motion. If one claims that there is order of some sort, that contradicts that particular principle." So, longtime reader of Victor, bmiller, has that interpretation of Victor's position.
I have engaged directly with that position.
There is an observed "unreasonable effectiveness" of mathematics in describing causality. Mathematics is logic. Hence, causality is fundamentally in accordance with logic. That which is rational is in accordance with logic. Therefore causality is fundamentally rational.
bmiller has interpreted Victor's position as asserting that on naturalism stuff is just sort of flying around any old which way, lacking order, and therefore cannot account for the observed order of our human rational thought.
I contradict that assertion of Victor and Lewis as interpreted by bmiller in saying just the opposite, that everything progresses with order, causality is ordered at base, causality always progresses in accordance with logic, and therefore the primary assertion of Lewis and Victor does not exist. There are no fundamentally non-rational causes because all causality is rational at base, that is, in accordance with logic.
Rationality entails aboutness and content and intent. Water flowing down a hill does not entail any of these, hence you are a troll who either purposely abuses language for fun or you're exceptionally dumb.
SteveK "Water flowing downhill being "rational" is the most recent example."
Ok, so the dictionary is wrong, "rational" does not mean "in accordance with logic"?
" routinely abuses language" I looked up the word and used the definition provided in the dictionary. I thought you guys would approve of that!
Lewis originally used the word "irrational". Anscombe criticized him for that so he later changed to using "non-rational".
Either way "ir" or "non" we still need to know what "rational" means. The whole argument is based on it, yet nobody here seems able to tell me, precisely, what "rational" is supposed to mean, such that we can determine what "ir" or "non" "rational" would then mean.
Not that you guys owe me anything, so fine, I looked it up.
I found that rational = in accordance with logic
Ok, fine, since all causality is in accordance with logic, then all causality is rational.
Therefore, there are no such things as "ir" or "non" rational causes, and the AFR is a total non-starter, over before it barely has begun, hopelessly defective out of the gate.
SteveK said... "Rationality entails aboutness and content and intent"
That's not what the dictionary says, but that's OK, common usage dictionary definitions can have significant limitations.
Just because the dictionary defines, say, "rational" or "hallucination" in a certain way does not obligate you or I to accept that definition as philosophically sound or comprehensive.
You seem to be considering human rationality in a fuller sense, a whole process of thought and analysis.
How much do you suppose you know about the mechanisms behind your thoughts, in particular when you do things like multiply numbers in your head, or figure out a math problem, or analyze a syllogistic argument?
I mean really, how much can you tell me, based on microscopic measurements, detailed scientific analysis, molecular biological research, and applications of all investigative techniques available, precisely, what happens in your brain when you reason rationally?
If you look around for writings on The Argument From Reason you will not find much from 1947 Lewis because that writing was such a mess. Lewis himself tried to clean it up, and others have made subsequent attempts. Typically, an updated version will start something like this "1. No belief is rationally inferred if it can be fully explained in terms of nonrational causes."
So, in your expanded version No belief that has aboutness and content and intent can be logically derived from non-rational causes.
That is just begging the question! The first premise is the very thing that the argument is trying to show, that naturalism cannot account for rational reasoning!
Again, the AFR is a non-starter. It just assumes ad hoc as the first premise the very thing it is trying to deductively prove, how absurd.
From Wiki "Support: Reasoning requires insight into logical relations. A process of reasoning (P therefore Q) is rational only if the reasoner sees that Q follows from, or is supported by, P, and accepts Q on that basis" In all causality Q does follow from P.
That is how causality works, Q follows from P. That is why we can write mathematical descriptions of causality, because Q follows from P at base.
We can reason that Q follows from P because we are composed of elements for which Q necessarily follows from P by intrinsic properties of those elements.
SteveK said... "Rationality entails aboutness and content and intent"
So, in your expanded version: *No belief that has aboutness and content and intent can be logically derived from causes that do not reason with aboutness and content and intent.*
That's just the fallacy of composition. Once again, AFR is a failure at hello.
A bridge can only be built with parts that are each little bridges. A watch can only be built with parts that are each little watches. A computer can only be built with parts that are each little computers. A brain can only be built with parts that are each little brains. A system of content and aboutness and logical reasoning and intentionality can only be built with parts that each have content and aboutness and logical reasoning and intentionality.
How does the AFR even begin to make any sense at all?
A bridge can only be built with parts that are each little bridges.
I'm not saying that at all. The aboutness and content that rationality works with are universals, not particulars. A bridge is a universal concept. The mind grasps "bridge-ness", not this bridge and that bridge so what the mind is grasping does not exist anywhere in reality as a particular. There is no "P therefore Q", no mathematical equations, that describes what doesn't exist in reality.
Anyway, you jumped the shark when you said "Water flowing down a hill = rational". You really are THAT dumb. That's the main takeaway as far as I'm concerned.
SteveK, "There is no "P therefore Q", no mathematical equations, that describes what doesn't exist in reality." So, all mathematical equations describe an ontologically actual reality?
So, if I write equations describing 43 dimensional space that means space really has 43 dimensions?
"you jumped the shark when you said "Water flowing down a hill = rational"" According to the dictionary definition that is true.
According to the dictionary "rational" is that which is "in accordance with logic". Water flowing down a hill is "in accordance with logic". Therefore, given the dictionary definition, water flowing down a hill is "rational".
If you have a different definition for the word "rational", fine, what is it?
I mean precisely, not just a few vague things that you think rationality entails.
What is the full, complete, comprehensive, precise definition of the word "rational"?
You say I am "dumb" for what you assert is a misuse of the word rational, but I merely applied the dictionary definition of the word.
You don't like the dictionary definition? Fine. What is yours?
If a bridge is more than the sum of its parts then that just is committing to formal causation. It seems naturalism now allows both formal and final causes.
So, all mathematical equations describe an ontologically actual reality?
Your "P therefore Q" put that into my mind so tell me how I can trust a universal concept that I cannot observe or put to the test? That's the issue that the AFR is attempting to address. The statement "All men are mortal" involves universal concepts that I cannot test with anything other than my mind. Is a man still a man if he has no legs or is blind? Is a man still a man if he identifies as a dog? If P therefore Q puts it into my mind that a man is a dog if he says he's a dog then by your logic, he's a dog because P therefore Q is always logical.
Water flowing down a hill is "in accordance with logic".
It seems naturalism now allows both formal and final causes.
Some defenders of naturalism - those who say water flowing down a hill is rational, and those who say grandchildren are moved by their deceased grandfathers - seem to have trouble grasping reality.
So, if I write equations describing 43 dimensional space that means space really has 43 dimensions?
This statement is full of universal concepts that cannot be tested. What is a dimension, or space or an equation or 43? Whatever your P therefore Q puts into anyone's mind is correct and true because it's all logical, LOL. I'm looking at 43 dimensional space right now because my mind, thanks to the blind forces of naturalism, sees reality that way. Prove my understanding of universals wrong.
1. a science that deals with the principles and criteria of validity of inference and demonstration : the science of the formal principles of reasoning
2. a branch or variety of logic
3. a branch of semiotics
4. the formal principles of a branch of knowledge
5. a particular mode of reasoning viewed as valid or faulty
6. interrelation or sequence of facts or events when seen as inevitable or predictable
7. The arrangement of circuit elements (as in a computer) needed for computation
8. Something that forces a decision apart from or in opposition to reason
Of all the definitions of "logic" offered here, Stardusty is apparently using (6), which is one of the few definitions that doesn't involve reasoning, a mental faculty. The argument from reason is not using that definition, thus that definition can't be used against the argument.
Much like rationality, as demonstrated above, using logic in that manner means that nothing is illogical, thus the word is rendered useless. Just things doing what things do.
Even before he was a Christian, Lewis grasped what he would later call the “cardinal difficulty” of Naturalism. In 1924, Lewis commented in his diary about reading “A Free Man’s Worship,” an essay by the atheist philosopher, Bertrand Russell. In his essay, Russell echoes the ancient Stoics in arguing that human hope can only be built “on the firm foundation of unyielding despair,” of recognizing that all of our experiences “are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms.” Lewis thought that Russell had offered a “very clear and noble statement of what I myself believed a few years ago.” But Lewis thought that Russell had not faced “the real difficulty – that our ideals are after all a natural product, facts with a relation to all other facts, and cannot survive the condemnation of the fact as a whole. The Promethean attitude would be tenable only if we were really members of some other whole outside of the real whole: wh[ich] we’re not.”
Lots of bricks arranged bridgewise is something I can walk over. There is no little bridge in each brick.
Well, according to what you've said so far, if some "P therefore Q" put it into his mind that bricks contain many little bridges because things can walk over the grains of sand and mortar - that would be correct, because the process is logical.
What makes you suppose you are somehow owed the capability to reasonably trust your perceived extramental reality as true?
I only think it's possible because I think we are created to have trustworthy perceptions.
Kevin, The argument from reason is not using that definition, thus that definition can't be used against the argument. You are correct but that won't stop SP from insisting that his definition is the only valid one, because Science(TM) or something.
Much like rationality, as demonstrated above, using logic in that manner means that nothing is illogical, thus the word is rendered useless. Just things doing what things do. SP has denied the existence of the mind several times so it makes sense that he would pick the definition that support eliminative materialism.
"CS Lewis' experience of naturalism." Right, Lewis does not really make arguments, at least sound philosophical arguments.
He was an apologist, a polemicist, an author of popular fiction, first and foremost one who used a great deal of overwrought drama about despair and ruins and on and on about his "experience" of the human condition.
He didn't make sound philosophical arguments, he despaired in writing about the plight of humankind.
If one shares his general level of hand wringing despair I suppose that sort of writing resonates. I don't share his despair so to me the hack level attempts at philosophy from Lewis are just inane crybaby drivel.
"But Lewis thought that Russell had not faced “the real difficulty – that our ideals are after all a natural product, facts with a relation to all other facts, and cannot survive the condemnation of the fact as a whole" That is simple, there is nothing outside of everything to compare the whole to as being better or worse. The whole is just the whole.
There can be no basis for objective morality, objective right or wrong.
Victor posted a wartime lecture by Lewis on objective morality. Of course, Lewis provided no philosophical argument for the reality of objective morality, just another one of his doomsday crybaby screeds about how much in despair he and all of us must be if there were no such thing as objective morality.
Well, there isn't, there cannot be, and I am not. If he were alive and I met him I would just tell him to grow up, get over yourself, enjoy the good things you have in this life because this is all you get.
I do not live my life on a foundation of "unyielding despair" or anything of the sort. I appreciate how lucky I am to be an American living today in such a time of relative peace, health, order, luxury, and opportunity.
Sure, there are a lot of people with real reasons for despair, all kinds of poverty, sickness, and losses of many kinds. But Lewis had all the advantages, he lived a rich and luxurious life, relatively, yet he managed to mope around in despair half the time, quite pathetic.
SteveK, "I only think it's possible because I think we are created to have trustworthy perceptions." Well, sorry to be the one to break it to you, but...
All sense data is false.
Our senses never tell us the truth with certainty about the extramental reality, never.
Unless you consider something like this to be true 97.3 = 100 Assuming that there really is a thing out there at all.
If you are going to speculate that god exists then you are the most likely thing to be god. I mean, at least you know for sure you exist, so a known existent being as god is infinitely more likely than some invisible undetectable speculation being god, right?
But, let's just agree to suppose that our senses provide some crude indication of an extramental reality.
On that provisional postulate, we can reason logically and then we find that the cosmos progresses very reliably in accordance with our logical reasoning.
Premise 1 "1. No belief is rationally inferred if it can be fully explained in terms of nonrational causes."
Depending how one defines "rational" the argument is over at hello.
1.If "rational" means "in accordance with logic" then there are no non-rational causes. Causations progresses at base in accordance with forces that can be mathematically described. Math is a form of logic. Causation, that is, all causation at base, is therefore in accordance with logic and thus rational.
2.Fallacy of composition, which means it is fallacious in a deductive argument to posit that what is true for the whole must be true for what the whole is composed of. Here the definition of "rational" doesn't much matter, call it X. ""1. No belief is X inferred if it can be fully explained in terms of nonX causes." Of course we explain the macro in terms of the micro wherein the micro is not the same as the macro.
3.Begging the question (circular reasoning). Premise 1 is just a wording of the conclusion! Aye yie yie. That is the conclusion, that there has to be a logical thinking mind to explain our logical thinking minds, so if you start with the premise that there cannot be a logical thinking mind that is explained without a logical thinking mind, then you will reach the conclusion that there must be a logical thinking mind to explain the logical thinking mind.
4.Infinite regress. If all logical thinking minds require a logical thinking mind to explain the logical thinking mind then the logical thinking mind that explains the logical thinking mind itself needs a logical thinking mind, ad infinitum.
Stopping the regress is irrational because it violates the first principle.
Continuing the regress is irrational because it forms a non-converging infinite real regress.
Therefore the premise, Premise 1 of the AFR, is incoherent, that is, it intrinsically violates the rules of logic.
Or do you consider it rational to assert an infinity of real gods arranged in a causal chain with each one explaining the next?
On Premise 1 of the AFR god cannot exist, because god has rational beliefs, and a being with rational beliefs must come from another being with rational beliefs, god's god, and so forth ad infinitum.
107 comments:
I haven't been keeping track. Is the FBI spying on them?
I've noticed that today you are likely to be labeled an anti-Semite for simply having beliefs that are not aligned with Jewish belief. It wasn't always this way. Given the low bar, I can see why some people will say it's on the rise.
I'm against abortion and transgenderism. I'm a Christian. I think Jewish people sometimes get it wrong and they need to face consequences. 10 years ago this didn't earn me the label, but today it does.
1) https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/being-anti-abortion-is-being-antisemitic/
2) https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-eight-genders-in-the-talmud/
SteveK said: I've noticed that today you are likely to be labeled an anti-Semite for simply having beliefs that are not aligned with Jewish belief.
Well, I reckon there are enough people of dubious intelligence and/or character in the world for it to be possible to find some human who would sort of provide a sort of evidence (but not confirmation) for what "[you]'ve noticed", but what "[you]'ve noticed" does not generally qualify as anti-semitic, and what "[you]'ve noticed" apparently has nothing to do with the linked video.
Furthermore, the opinion at the first link you posted does not discuss anti-semitism. The title of that piece is not only prima facie atrociously wrong, but it is also atrociously wrong for not representing what is actually written in the article. The second link you provided has no anti-semitism in either the title or the article. So, uh, why was that one included? I mean, I can see why the first link might be included so long as the article hadn't actually been read, but I am missing entirely the point of the second link.
SteveK also said: I think Jewish people sometimes get it wrong and they need to face consequences.
What does that mean?!?!?! Not the get-it-wrong-part. Rather the consequences part. Disagreement is insufficient for anti-semitism, anti-semitism being the issue here. Surely you're not claiming that actual anti-semitism is some kind of consequence for some kind of something gotten wrong! As if anti-semitism is justified as a consequence?!
I wasn't going to read the first article but I did.
She claims that preventing her from getting an abortion is anti-semitic because it prevents her from practicing her religion. It may be a bad argument but it does support the claim in the title of her article. What I wasn't expecting was the Spanish Inquisition! I claim she's practicing anti-Catholicism!
It looks like anti-Christianism is on the rise also.
The author of the first article Vicki Polin has apparently suffered trauma in the past, but also seems to have contributed to those looking to be anti-semitic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Awareness_Center
Appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show
In 1989, before founding the center, Polin was a guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show.[6][19][20] Appearing under a pseudonym,[6][19] she claimed that she was a survivor of a secret, Jewish Satanic cult, in which she, her family, and others had sacrificed babies to the devil.[6][7][19][20]
The origin and transformation of the term anti-semitism over time" is presented in this article. It is a long but interesting read (for me at least). David Feldman is Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism and a Professor of History.
TLDR:
Started in late 1800's in Germany related to immigration of Eastern European Jews to Germany and the following politics concerning only political rights of minorities. The definition grew to include hatred of Jews. Now with Israel being a majority Jewish state and the resulting clash with the minority Palestinians being non-Jewish, is Israel guilty of anti-anti-semitism?
A Semite includes Arabs, Jews, Akkadians, and Phoenicians.
Semitic languages include Arabic, Amharic, and Hebrew.
So, an anti-Semite is one who is opposed to Arabs, Jews, Akkadians, and Phoenicians in particular speakers of Arabic, Amharic, and Hebrew.
"Anti-Semite" is one of those dumb, exclusionary terms strongly disliked by those who are Semites but not Jews.
If you mean "Jew hater" or "anti-Jew" why not just say so?
"Anti-Semite" is like calling "Italian defamation" "anti-Caucasian".
bmiller said: She claims that preventing her from getting an abortion is anti-semitic because it prevents her from practicing her religion. It may be a bad argument but it does support the claim in the title of her article.
Nope. That does not support the claim in the title even though it is compatible with the claim in the title; compatibility is insufficient for support. But that's not really interesting. What is far more interesting is observing people wanting to read that article as having something to do with anti-semitism.
bmiller said: The author of the first article Vicki Polin has apparently suffered trauma in the past, but also seems to have contributed to those looking to be anti-semitic.
I really have no idea what the latter half of that sentence is supposed to mean. Even so, it seems to be closely related to one SteveK made: "I think Jewish people sometimes get it wrong and they need to face consequences." What information are those sentences supposed to convey?
EThere are different forms of anti-Semitism. I thnk there is a right-wing version and a left-wing version.. Leftist often see the Palestinians as "the oppressed" and the Israelis as "the oppressors," and ssnce, according the their extreme Woke ideology. the oppressed can do no wron and oppressors can do no right, the anti=Semitism encouraged by Hamas is justified.
Michael S. Pearl,
What is interesting to me are the people that think there is something sinister about other people that read an article titled "Being Anti-abortion is being anti-semitic" (in which the author gives reasons for her claim) and conclude the article is about the author making a claim that being anti-abortion is being anti-semitic. It makes me think those people may be sinister.
What information are those sentences supposed to convey?
I won't speak for Steve, but what I meant was that someone telling people that some Jews sacrifice infants to Satan could confirm in some people's minds that the old "blood libel" anti-semitic theory was true. In fact that is exactly what the ADL claimed and demanded an apology from Oprah. Do I really have to explain this to you?
bmiller said: What is interesting to me are the people that think there is something sinister ...
Sinister? Really? HaHaHa! No, merely hard to figure out why anyone would find that author or that author's remarks particularly relevant to the topic of and matters of anti-Semitism.
bmiller said: ... could confirm in some people's minds that the old "blood libel" anti-semitic theory was true.
Oh. That's all? I guess it's worth observing people confirming the quality of their being by taking blood libel type remarks as evidence whether or not sufficient for confirmation. But that's so very commonplace. Even so, some stories of the commonplace are quite interesting for what they reveal about too much of human being. Here is a passage from p. 98 of Scott A. Shay's Conspiracy U:
Hugo Grotius, one of the wisest sixteenth-century thinkers to whom humanity is still deeply indebted, was confounded by the blood libels because they made no sense to him from his experience with Jews. yet that was what was written in authoritative books that he studied. So he too accepted blood libels as truth.
Michael S. Pearl,
No, merely hard to figure out why anyone would find that author or that author's remarks particularly relevant to the topic of and matters of anti-Semitism.
OK. Since you claim no sinister intention, another possibility could be poor reading comprehension ability. I'm leaning in that direction because it seems you are perplexed by nearly everything you read.
As much as I'd like to help it would involve me writing things for you to read which we've seen won't actually help.
bmiller said: ... another possibility could be poor reading comprehension ability. I'm leaning in that direction because it seems you are perplexed by nearly everything you read.
Hmmm. The possibility of poor reading comprehension is what comes to your mind in response to the issue of why anyone would find that author or that author's remarks particularly relevant (or in any way worthwhile)? That indicates a far less developed ability to reason than I had been attributing to you. Excuse me for having been excessively charitable towards you. I understand how others having higher expectations for you than you can satisfy can seem oppressive, burdensome. My mistake. I should have realized your early FBI remark was supposed to be taken seriously, and then I would have realized that all you would have to offer is vacuous remarks following upon remarks of no substance.
Bunch of robe wearing sand nomads who speak gibberish and love to barter.
I'm talking about the Jawas of Tatooine, of course.
Yes. I consider it poor reading comprehension when the reader claims the author's content was unrelated to the author's title when the author's content clearly explains why she made the claim. As I mentioned, it may not have been a good argument, but that is different from claiming the content was unrelated to the title.
However, you're beginning to persuade me that my first impression was correct since you are now claiming your complaint is that the article was not " particularly relevant (or in any way worthwhile)" rather than the title and content were unrelated according to the author.
Your excessive charity has been noted and as you've pointed out you've done your best to make it seem oppressive. But don't worry, I have born the burden of nasty nuts posting insults at me in the past rather than choosing to have a rational discussion. I'll make it through my day.
Kevin,
You are invoking the excessive charity of the Pearl. Beware!
So Victor.
Are you saying that Leftist foundational principles have resulted in anti-semitism?
Another question.
Should a tenured professor be removed from a university for holding holocaust-denial opinions personally but unrelated to what he teaches?
Should a tenured professor be removed from a university for holding holocaust-denial opinions personally but unrelated to what he teaches?
Don't know if you were specifically asking Victor, but my answer is if it's a private university, they can do whatever they want, but if it's a public university, then nope. That should not be grounds in of itself for removal.
The question was to anyone who wants to give an opinion.
I can understand why you say a private institution can do that, but why not a public institution? Holding and expressing that opinion is definitely anti-semitic.
bmiller said: ... nasty nuts posting insults at me in the past rather than choosing to have a rational discussion.
Is "nut" really the correct word choice when all I did was ignore the recommendation to not cast before swine? Isn't that more foolish than nut-like? Be that as it may, so far there has been no evidence provided indicating that you are capable of rational discussion (at least on this topic). I will proceed despite that.
bmiller said: ... it may not have been a good argument ...
The article did not present an argument; what it did present might be called an argument fragment inasmuch as it has at least one passage which could be used in an actual argument (regardless of whether it would be a good or bad or interesting or not argument). The gist of the article is found in this paragraph:
This issue of being anti-abortion comes from a Christian perspective. According to the constitution of the United States there is supposed to be a separation of Church and State. By creating laws which ban women from ending a pregnancy is imposing the Christian belief system onto those who practice other faiths, along with women who are unaffiliated to any religion.
There is nothing in that paragraph which ties it to any sense of anti-Semitism; there is nothing in the rest of the article which ties that paragraph to any sense of anti-Semitism. Indeed, whatever is supposed to be included under the term anti-Semitism, I expect there would have to be some prejudice against Jews (no matter the rationalization for the prejudice). Accordingly, for that article to be an article actually about anti-Semitism, it would be necessary for that article to make some tie in with a prejudice against Jews or Judaism or Jewish philosophical interpretations or what have you. There is nothing in this article which indicates as motivation a prejudice specifically against Jews. In fact, the article itself notes that there are any number of other religious and non-religious perspectives at odds with the particular Christian anti-abortion perspective - - meaning the article does not claim that a prejudice against Jews is the impetus for the Christian anti-abortion perspective. What this argument fragment works best at would be in a class for 13 - 15 year olds being introduced to the notion that constitutional rights (such as that regarding religion) can remain intact and valid even if there are limits to such rights.
Moving on ... even if it were assumed for the sake of argument that the article was about anti-Semitism, then what does the article indicate about anti-Semitism? The answer is: ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. It remains unfathomable as well as unexplained why anyone would link to such an article in a discussion which was apparently about anti-Semitism. It remains a curiosity why someone whose response to the very topic of anti-Semitism was a reference to the FBI would also insist that such a poor quality article was about anti-Semitism without ever bothering to even try to show in what way that article was informative about anti-Semitism or why it was worth linking to that of all articles in an anti-Semitism discussion.
Is "nut" really the correct word choice
Actually it was nasty nut. Nasty because instead of engaging in a reasonable argument to begin with you immediately started attacking people's character and intelligence. It seems you don't like it when it is done to you. Go figure.
Now it seems you actually want to discuss your reasons for concluding the author had no intention of accusing pro-life people of being anti-semitic in her article titled "Being anti-abortion is being antisemitic" and she gave no reasons? Well after reading your analysis, it seems you are merely claiming that what she considers "antisemitic" does not line up with what you consider "antisemitic". Aside from the discussion of whether she made a good argument or bad one, I take SteveK's remark to imply that the meaning of the word has changed over time and now we see the accusation being leveled for reasons never used before. If her definition gains more acceptance then the definition will have once more changed as it has in the past as I pointed out in the article I linked to above.
Moving on...
First of all, I did not link to the article in question. I had no intention of reading it until you made such overblown claims. I disputed your claim that she did not intend to accuse people of antisemitism by paraphrasing her argument.
I mocked her for her anti-Catholic claims, which you apparently are not perturbed by. Aside from your silly insistence that she use your definitions or what she says is meaningless, that was my point. To show the irony of someone making accusations of anti-semitism by being anti-Catholic.
Second of all it appears that SteveK was complaining about people accusing him of anti-semitism because of his religious beliefs, which is a reasonable conclusion for those reading the article. 10 years ago these types of accusations were not in the mainstream he claims.
Third, why does it bother you that I joke about the FBI. I'm a Catholic and the FBI thinks trad Catholics need to be under surveillance. Is anti-Catholicism OK but anti-semitism is not?
Holding and expressing that opinion is definitely anti-semitic.
That's an interesting assertion, because I would say no it isn't.
I knew a guy many years ago who was rather fond of conspiracy theories in general, and while it's been too long for me to recall the details, he spoke of something along the lines of a census taken after WWII concluded. Supposedly this census was able to account for every casualty, but there was roughly a six million figure discrepancy between claimed casualties and accounted casualties. Maybe the Holocaust never happened!
Now, his being fond of conspiracy theories in general, coupled with never hearing him say a thing negatively about Jews specifically, I would disagree that it is automatically anti-semitic for someone to sniff out a "plot" and latch onto it. The alleged existence of the plot itself is the draw.
It's a similar thing for us here in the south, we have a bunch of yahoos running around with Confederate flags, and those with whom I've bothered to strike up conversation never say "Golly I wish slavery was back and our towns all white!" Rather, they are focused on the "rebel" part, their motivation one of anti-Washington, federal-government-too-big sentiment. Those sentiments hold strong here even without the flags.
Now I would agree that such things could be argued as ignorantly insensitive, like those who wear Che Guevara shirts but ignore the bloody parts. But being ignorantly insensitive, even in cases where everyone can agree ignorant insensitivity has occurred, is protected by free speech, which is good in a world where many say that disagreeing with gender ideology is ignorantly insensitive at best, and outright bigoted at worst.
On topic with one of the articles, I've heard plenty of times that being pro-life is sexist and anti-women and patriarchal and blah blah blah. Well no it isn't. Being opposed to killing the unborn is opposition to killing the unborn, not anti-women and not anti-semitic. Your beef has to actually be toward that group before you are bigoted toward that group.
That's an interesting assertion, because I would say no it isn't.
The Government says different:
https://www.state.gov/defining-antisemitism/
Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g. gas chambers) or intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany and its supporters and accomplices during World War II (the Holocaust
So you can expect the FBI to be keeping a closer eye on you now :-O
Also:
Antisemitic acts are criminal when they are so defined by law (for example, denial of the Holocaust or distribution of antisemitic materials in some countries).
bmiller said: ... attacking people's character and intelligence. It seems you don't like it when it is done to you.
Hmmm. Assertion without evidence. The fact that you are a delicate snowflake is accepted and will get no further comment.
bmiller said: ... it seems you are merely claiming that what she considers "antisemitic" does not line up with what you consider "antisemitic".
Whoa! Stop right there. Provide her definition of anti-Semitic. Hopefully you will have something other than your assumption that she composed the title. If that's all you have, then you have less than zero even if she came up with that title, because at the very least you should be able to note how, uh, eccentric such a "definition" would be.
Responses to rest of your remarks will follow later.
I've also noticed that you'll get into a lot of trouble if you say something that is anti-Semitic, but you'll get a pat on the back if you say something that is anti-White. You don't have to do anything, just say the words. Holding a sign that says "White Lives Matter" will get you on the naughty list at the FBI. This world is F'ckd up even more than it was. "Clown World" is a good descriptor.
The Government says different
That would support me being right more than being wrong.
Hmmm. Assertion without evidence.
Oh. So you like getting your character and intelligence attacked. Duly noted. You make it so easy.
Whoa! Stop right there. Provide her definition of anti-Semitic.
Why should I. She provided her definition in the article. Its the part you disagree with.
It seems you have never heard of begging the question. The question is what should or should not be part of the definition of anti-semitism. You are merely assuming she is wrong and you are right. Here you go:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question
BTW, I'm guessing you've never set foot on a farm. Those things in your hand that you claim are pearls you're casting before swine? You got them from the sheep pen. They aren't really pearls. :-)
That would support me being right more than being wrong.
You sound like trouble.
"Clown World" is a good descriptor.
Do you mean "Bozo" the Clown World or Steven King "It" the Clown World?
Bozo without the innocence.
Michael S. Pearl
In case you need to load up on more pearls* you can order them here
*no pun intended wrt your name unless you did
Bozo without the innocence.
I think "It" lost its innocence somewhere along the way too. It's getting pretty obvious, no?
Observations Report
Project: Bereshit 18:24-33 (Rev)
Summary:
An internet posting referred to a video described as regarding increased occurrences of anti-Semitism and that alleged trend was asserted to be disturbing.
The first reply by Respondent 1 (R1) was reference to FBI spying, apparently for some rationale supposedly related to R1 being "a Catholic and the FBI thinks trad[itional] Catholics need to be under surveillance." R1 indicates that this surveillance is "anti-Catholic"; R1 also claims to have "mocked [the author of an article to which another respondent referred (see below)] for her anti-Catholic claims" where it can only be assumed that those allegedly anti-Catholic claims regard a disparaging depiction of the Spanish Inquisition. R1 steadfastly refuses to attribute content to the word anti-Semitic, and when it is noted that the word at least indicates some prejudice against Jews, R1 simply announces "that the meaning of the word [anti-Semitism] has changed over time" without either recognizing or explicitly denying that anti-Semitism at least indicates some sort of prejudice against Jews.
Unlike R1, Respondent 2 (R2) at least concocts a reply which can be imagined as appearing to be actually almost relevant. The link to the video was highlighted as "Antisemitism on the rise", even though the MSNBC video itself is titled "... on monitoring and combatting antisemitism"; the video itself spends little time on the claim that there is an increase of anti-Semitism and more time on the nature of anti-Semitism (even though there is little in-depth analysis provided). In any event, R2 says that the term anti-Semitism is used differently than it used to be, presumably more widely, and presumably that is intended as some sort of retort to the notion that anti-Semitic incidents are on the rise. According to personal testimony of R2, "anti-Semitic" is a label currently applied "likely ... for simply having beliefs that are not aligned with Jewish belief." R2 does not provide evidence that his interpretation of his experience is in any way relevant to the ADL claim in the video that anti-Semitic incidents are more frequent occurrences. R2 then linked to an article [the one referenced above in the R1 summary] about a Christian anti-abortion perspective as well as another article interested in centuries-old thinking about "nonbinary gender" individuals. Apparently R2 thinks that at least with regards to "abortion and transgenderism ... Jewish people sometimes get it wrong and they need to face consequences."
Analysis:
R1 has affected pretensions to rationality but is hardly capable of even rationalization. R1 is an intractably blinkered tribalist, and R2 also exhibits a tribalism. The Principle of Philosophical Charity seems anathema to both R1 and R2. In this case, both appear keenly devoted to presenting claims about even the very concept of anti-Semitism in the most unfavorable light. R1 and R2 are most aptly described in terms of disinterest, and/or implied belittlement of, and/or distaste for the very concept of anti-Semitism, and that would explain why they avoid actual engagement. R2's reflexive association of anti-Semitism with the idea that "Jewish people ... need to face consequences" puts R2 in infamous company.
Conclusion:
The noted tribalism is sufficient in itself to make it impossible for either R1 or R2 to qualify under Bereshit 18:24-33 (Rev).
Disposition: Case closed.
Michael S. Pearl,
I was planning on presenting a defense of the second half of my claim of you being a nasty nut since the first part had been conclusively proven. But I see now that you've done my work for me yourself. Thank you.
Michael S. Pearl,
It is apparent to me now that you were not serious that it does not bother you to be mocked. So I apologize for mocking your "pearl before swine" insult. It also seems to me that you have a lot of anger and hate and perhaps that gets in the way of you being able to conduct calm, rational, respectful discussions. So I apologize for calling you a nut. It may just have been your anger talking.
Regardless, I wish the best for all Jewish people.
I offer this traditional liturgical blessing:
Let us also pray for the Jews: That our God and Lord may illuminate their hearts, that they acknowledge Jesus Christ is the Savior of all men. (Let us pray. Kneel. Rise.) Almighty and eternal God, who want that all men be saved and come to the recognition of the truth, propitiously grant that even as the fullness of the peoples enters Thy Church, all Israel be saved. Through Christ Our Lord. Amen.
Victor,
Back to your observation about the Left.
It has been my experience that some people "see" oppression and justified grievances where none objectively exist. For instance, you are a white male heterosexual Christian and so merely that fact means you are an oppressor regardless of your intentions, grading math tests as having correct or incorrect answers is racist and so on. Reason itself is under attack as racist if it does not align with one's "lived experience". Have the underlying foundations of the philosophy of the Left led to its own undermining?
Are there any efforts within the Left to resist this? Your very own "Argument From Reason" is prey. If you are a Christian, you are a tribalist. Do you have any reasonable explanation for anyone to remain in system?
"Your very own "Argument From Reason" is prey. "
The so-called "argument from reason" is prey, ironically, to anyone who applies sound reasoning to it. Left or right is irrelevant.
The argument from reason.
EAAN
The argument from psychophysical harmony.
All depend on profoundly disjointed misunderstandings of biological evolution and the fundamentals of how biological physiology functions generally.
On the prevailing scientific model of evolution one would expect to find real living philosophical zombies, that is, organisms that go about sensing and reacting with no conscious awareness of their motor or other functions, so such "arguments" go.
Well, yes, and that is just what we find. Nearly all life is robotic. Plants, single celled organisms, and even fairly complex animals are biological robots.
You are mostly a biological robot. You have trillions of cells and you have no conscious awareness of what any of them are doing individually. Prior to modern science you would not have been aware that you even had cells at all.
The vast majority of your body and brain activity is not available to your conscious awareness. Your consciousness is just a tiny fragmentary tip on a vast mountain of brain activity that is not examinable by you.
You are mostly a zombie.
On the scientific model of evolution one would expect to select for utility of reproduction, not truth. Yes, again, that is just what we find.
People believe a very great many things that are not true, or have you not noticed that?
Such "arguments" ask how we can trust that we are sensing and reasoning to truth? Very simple. We can't. Isn't that obvious?
The experiences of qualia are hallucinatory, not the truth of an external reality, merely internally manufactured fantasies that have selection utility, just as one would expect on the scientific model of biological evolution.
The utility of our qualia hallucinations is that they map as highly stylized, approximated, and inaccurate correlates to an external reality.
If I punch a brick wall there really is some stuff there. The qualia experiences associated with the process are hallucinatory, and my perceptions of the wall and my fist and the motions involved are both highly inaccurate and mostly robotic, but my experiences of the process correlate to a physical reality to a sufficient degree as to provide a reproductive advantage, and that is the linkage between our highly inaccurate, stylized, and hallucinatory qualia experiences and truth.
There is truth.
Truth is the ontological reality of the cosmos, what really exists, whatever that is at base. That is the truth. The true underlying reality is bedrock truth.
Our experiences form a set of highly stylized trendline approximations of that vastly complex truth.
We do not see or hear or feel truth, only a very rough approximation of it, but a causally linked correlated approximation, and it is that causally linked correlation that is a selection benefit, and has thus been selected for in biological evolution.
For most organisms their activities are simple enough that purely robotic zombie reactions are sufficient, and that is in fact what most life is.
But the more complex the system over time and space and activities, the more complex control mechanisms are required. That is how feelings such as pain and pleasure evolved.
So why not evolve pain to associate with sex and pleasure to associate with bodily injury but simply have sex in spite of the pain and avoid bodily injury in spite of the pleasure? Because that would be a conflict of control that would be a selection disadvantage as compared to psychophysical harmonization.
If one can avoid bodily injury in spite of pleasure it would be simpler to just not have any sensation at all and just robotically avoid bodily injury. That is fine for simple organisms, and that is just what we observe for simple organisms, but complex organisms benefit from an additional layer of control.
Pleasure seeking and pain avoiding are higher level, longer term, behavioral influencing control factors that layer on top of the simplistic short term robotic processes. Their absence or their psychophysical disharmony are a selection disadvantage compared to conscious and psychophysically harmonized physiologies.
Semantic error may provide the illusion of never being wrong to those engaged in it, but unfortunately misusing words and terms does not alter the concepts behind the original meaning. Even if a true semantic shift is underway, the existence of multiple active and contradictory definitions is an impediment to actual communication unless one carefully distinguishes one's usage (unless ambiguity is the intent).
In contrast, asserting a semantic error as the one true meaning, without qualification, particularly while the vast majority of the word's historical and modern usage contradicts the error, simply makes one look foolish.
If I call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?
That sounds really ableist to me. How dare you assume a dog is defined by number of tails?
Is there an ist-ist that I ain't?
While we're on the subject. Why don't cats tell very many stories?
"If I call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?"
Depends if you still call a leg a leg.
Also, since you called that appendage a leg do you call all appendages legs? Is an ear a leg as well?
And what sort of dog? The typical dog, not considered generally to suffer from an appendage anomaly or pathology?
People coin terms from time to time.
Also, from time to time terms that were considered limited by most are later considered to have a much broader scope and application than had previously been commonly thought.
Where is your qualia experience of, for example, yellow?
Is your experience of yellow a property of a banana?
If you heard violins playing in C minor every time you looked at a banana would violin music be a property of the banana?
Bryan Magee had a series called "Men of Ideas". "Men" being a dated term by now, but nearly all the philosophers of history we know of were, men. Times change, terms change, but those men of ideas reasoned their way to the understanding, long ago, that our access to extramental reality is only through our senses, and those senses never tell us the ultimate truth.
"Men of Ideas" have realized for centuries that our senses provide only some rough approximated correlate to extramental truth. But, still, the average person still scoffs, filled with the confidence born of ignorance that the senses are somehow conveying truth.
Your sense experiences, that is, your qualia experiential process, is entirely hallucinatory.
Qualia experiences are entirely manufactured internally. There is no yellow somehow out there. If you ever gain the insight to be among the "Men of Ideas" you will come to understand that clear and obvious fact. More likely, you will remain among the ignorant "vast majority".
You say all that, yet by the concept that the definition of hallucination describes, you're still wrong. And that's not even getting into the wrong use of p-zombies.
Welcome to the vast majority!
Why don't cats tell very many stories?
No one wants to listen to groomers.
No one wants to listen to groomers.
HA! Not bad.
The real answer is because they only have one tale.
And calling a tail a leg doesn't mean a dog has 5 legs. It still has 4 legs and a tail regardless of what you want to call the tail.
But what do call a dog with no legs?
Interesting exchange
https://ralphriver.blogspot.com/2007/01/she-obliterated-me-as-apologist-lewis.html
"Welcome to the vast majority!"
Indeed. Most people say things like "bananas are yellow".
One philosopher I read explained that a blue chair has the property of being blue, but painting the chair red changes the chair to having the property of being red.
It did not seem to dawn on that philosopher, or the average person, that the experience of any particular color is entirely an internally manufactured hallucination.
Many attempts have been made to show that naturalism (materialism) is somehow self refuting. Such arguments typically get a few things correct, but then get all jumbled up with disjointed and confused expressions of nonsensical assertions.
That is what happened to Lewis in Miracles. Later Plantinga made similar facepalm style arguments with EAAN. Now there is the similarly absurd argument from psychophysical harmony making the rounds as some supposedly new and great argument.
What such arguments get right are a few points about evolution.
1.On naturalistic biological evolution there is no need for pain or consciousness, only robotic zombie reactions to sense data. That is correct for nearly all life.
Yes, nearly all life is robotic, and mechanistic. About 95% of biomass is made up of plants and bacteria. Other forms of life are also robotic.
2.On naturalistic biological evolution there is no need to perceive total truth, only an indication beneficial to reproduction. That is also correct.
So, if you look at a banana and instead of seeing yellow you hear a pleasant tune, but when you look at a rock you hear an irritating noise, you don't need to know that there is no tune coming from the banana and there is no noise coming from the rock. All you need to know is that eating the thing that produces the pleasant tune is good and eating the thing that produces the irritating noise is bad. The truth of the sounds is irrelevant to their selection advantage utility.
The fact that such sounds are entirely hallucinatory is irrelevant to their utility.
Such hallucinatory qualia are just internally generated arbitrary symbols, which derive their utility not from the truth value of the qualia experience but by reliable association with real external arrangements of material.
Supposing you always wear VR goggles, and there is a camera that feeds an AI processor such that you never see faces, only colorful patterns uniquely assigned to each face by the AI, but randomly generated in shapes and colors. That would be enough to function.
The experience of the randomly generated shapes and colors would be hallucinatory, but so long as those hallucinations were consistently associated with real external collections of material the hallucinations would have selection value.
The experience of the randomly generated shapes and colors would be hallucinatory, but so long as those hallucinations were consistently associated with real external collections of material the hallucinations would have selection value.
If it is consistently associated with real external collections of material, it is, by definition, not a hallucination. The way you are using the word, it wouldn't have ever existed.
You're throwing out all these brain processes, but that's not the issue.
It doesn't matter if the color yellow exists or how the brain functions, whether it's completely real or magic or a complex biological model, whether the mind is somehow distinct from the brain or not, or whether the young earth creationists actually got it right on evolution. The word "hallucination" describes a concept, not a process.
We aren't disagreeing on how the brain works. We are disagreeing on taking a word that means "not associated with real external collections of material" and applying it to the exact opposite concept, which renders the word completely useless. And if it's useless, what's the point in using it?
There are better terms for what you and Anil Seth are describing than "hallucination". As is, you're just misusing the word and obscuring clear concepts.
Here is a paper with better terminology. At no point do they describe the process as a hallucination, but rather illusion. A much wiser approach, all can agree, since an illusion is a false perception but still based on an external trigger, unlike a hallucination.
And here is the aforementioned paper.
In this work, through a phenomenological analysis, we studied the perception of the chromatic illusion and illusoriness. The necessary condition for an illusion to occur is the discovery of a mismatch/disagreement between the geometrical/physical domain and the phenomenal one.
Since geometry is unrelated to color, and we are considering this from a geometrical standpoint, color is therefore an illusion. Why waste so many words when you can just say this?
Maybe the authors think sounding smart earns more publishing points than concise writing?
They certainly have to publish or perish. Does "sounding smart" mean the same thing as "making sense"?
Here is one deffinition of hallucinationa:
"A hallucination is a perception in the absence of an external stimulus that has the qualities of a real perception."
There is no external stimulus of yellow, or sweet, that is, the experience itself. There is no such experience somehow out there that we are approximating in a realistic manner.
Our spatial perceptions are not hallucinations, rather, they are approximations of real external material. Thus, our spatial perceptions are both untruthful and realistic.
A spatial perception is not the truth in the sense that if you write 99.9 on a math test when the answer should be 100 you will get the answer marked as wrong.
But if you answer 15.1 for 15, and 28.97 for 29, and 2899 for 2900 then we can say that your method of approximation is realistic, that is, your approximation method closely tracks the truth over a wide range of circumstances.
Yellow or red or sweet are not like that. There is no such thing as color or taste out there to be approximated in any way. Qualia experiences are fully hallucinatory, merely made up symbols that are arbitrarily associated with external realities, or not.
I realize this is very difficult to accept for most people because our sensory experiences seem so real.
Consider
Symbol
Index
Icon
"Symbols are arbitrary and unmotivated, reliant on conventional usage to determine meaning."
https://csmt.uchicago.edu/glossary2004/symbolindexicon.htm#:~:text=Of%20Peirce's%20many%20ways%20of,weathervane%20or%20a%20thermometer)%3B
Our qualia experiences are symbols, wholly made up internally with no extramental reality, arbitrary only have meaning by conventional association.
Our spatial perceptions are icons with modeled topological similarity to extramental real arrangements of real material.
"which renders the word completely useless."
On the contrary, the use of "hallucination" in this context is to emphasize that qualia experiences are arbitrary symbols, not icons of an extramental reality.
"The necessary condition for an illusion to occur is the discovery of a mismatch/disagreement between the geometrical/physical domain and the phenomenal one."
A disconnection is not a mismatch, it is no match. There is no extramental physical domain of the qualia experience of color.
By the above meaning of "illusion" looking at yourself in a funhouse mirror would be a spatial illusion, a distorted version of an extramental reality.
Color is not a distorted version of an extramental reality. There is no extramental reality of the qualia experience of color.
This is an interesting exchange Victor had some years back, as noted above.
https://ralphriver.blogspot.com/2007/01/she-obliterated-me-as-apologist-lewis.html
The criticisms of Lewis by Anscombe were by no means comprehensive. Lewis had written so sloppily that the supposed "argument" from reason was just a meandering and poorly expressed rumination, certainly not anything remotely resembling a sound philosophical argument.
All Anscombe did was point out a few of the more obvious problems with the "argument" from reason that Lewis presented.
The core absurdities persist in:
The argument from reason
EAAN
The argument from psychophysical harmony
All fail to understand even the rudiments of materialistic claims regarding truth, knowledge, perception, and biological evolution.
A few things to keep in mind while reviewing such arguments for the supposed self-contradiction of materialism.
1.Science is provisional. Science does not do proof.
2.Our senses do not provide truth, only a rough correlation or symbolic association with extramental reality.
3.Nearly all life is robotic.
4.You are mostly robotic, with consciousness of feelings or ideas being just a fragmentary and tiny tip of a mountain of your physiology.
5.People do in fact believe a great many false notions.
6.Natural selection has a connection to extramental truth to the extent that having some fairly realistic approximation of extramental truth is often a reproductive advantage.
I realize this is very difficult to accept for most people because our sensory experiences seem so real.
Again, the issue is not one of process, but of classification. I don't see the color yellow if I don't look at a banana or bottle of mustard, for example. Those perceptions occur based on light wavelength entering my eye. If my brain randomly assigned yellow to objects or fields of view in an unreliable, unrepeatable fashion, with no correlation to anything I'm looking at, then sure, that would be hallucination. As is, it's more illusion. It's based on an external trigger even if it's not accurate.
Regarding the argument from reason, I've never understood its appeal.
There is no extramental reality of the qualia experience of color.
You would be wrong about that. The mind, via the eye, is translating wavelength to color. If you don't see color then medical science says you have a problem. Medical science doesn't say there's nothing there to translate into color. Medical science also wouldn't say that there's no correct or incorrect way for your mind/eye to translate that wavelength because then you would be saying there's no correct way for your eyes and mind to function. Only dumb people like you say the things that you say - because you are locked into an eliminative materialistic hellscape where you have to constantly remind yourself that you are living in the matrix.
It should come as no surprise that dogs, cats, and sheep translate wavelength differently because they have different eyes and minds. A black & white TV set translates the signal differently than a color TV set which translates it differently than a radio. Only dumb people would say there's nothing being translated or there's no correct way to translate.
Kevin,
Regarding the argument from reason, I've never understood its appeal.
What do you consider to be the major weakness?
Does the AFR essentially say that final causality and intentionality are necessary features of rationality, so if blind forces are causing the mind to function 'at base' (tee hee) then we can't expect our minds to actually be rational? Makes sense to me but what do I know. Maybe blind quantum forces self-organize into intentionality that designs and builds Teslas and nanoscale computer chips - and performs its own quality control. Seemingly there's nothing blind forces can't do.
The quality control is certainly lacking.
"I don't see the color yellow if I don't look at a banana or bottle of mustard, for example."
Really? You never dream of colors? You never imagine colors? You never experience shapes of colors even with your eyes covered or in pitch dark?
Well, perhaps not, but I do.
"Medical science doesn't say there's nothing there to translate into color."
There is something out there, but it is not a sort of color to be translated.
One sort of word can be translated into another sort of word.
There is no sort of color to be translated into the qualia experience of color.
The qualia experience of color is entirely internally manufactured and arbitrary.
Color is a symbol, not an icon.
We then arbitrarily assign the symbol to the extramental real phenomena.
Once assigned the consistent assignment does not make the assignment objective, rather, the association remains arbitrarily assigned, but the same arbitrary assignment is used consistently.
For example, it is arbitrary to assign a particular playing card as having a higher value in a particular game. But that arbitrary assignment can be consistently applied while remaining an arbitrary assignment.
" Only dumb people would say there's nothing being translated or there's no correct way to translate."
There is something.
A fundamental provisional postulate of science is that our senses are responding to some sort of real extramental phenomena that are characteristic of some sort of real beables.
Colors are not a translation between similar sorts of things.
Color is an entirely arbitrary internally manufactured hallucinatory qualia experience.
That internally manufactured experience is a symbol that is then arbitrarily assigned to the real extramental phenomena.
Once arbitrarily assigned the symbol is consistently associated with similar sorts of external phenomena under consistent conditions, but that association can be easily tricked and fooled and distorted once the mechanisms of symbol assignment are better understood.
There is no "correct" way to translate.
Your experience of color might be vastly different than my experience of color.
Such differences are demonstrable.
Yet, neither of us is somehow "correct" or "incorrect" merely because our experiences of qualia are so different.
Neither of us can have a "correct" or "incorrect" assignment of internal symbology to extramental phenomena because that assignment is equally arbitrary at base for both of us.
"minds to actually be rational?"
What would a mind have to do to "actually" be rational, as opposed to only seeming to be rational?
What is the precise definition of the term "rationally inferred"?
What do you consider to be the major weakness?
A purpose of the argument is to show that naturalism as a worldview is self-refuting. For that to be successful, someone committed to the claims of naturalism would have to hit a wall in which naturalism has no answer. I don't think this argument gives them much trouble.
For example, the faculty of rationality, per naturalism, can arise via natural selection over millions of years, in which neural processes which produce more accurate perceptions of the external world lead to a higher survival rate, and then that is passed onto the offspring. In this regard, rational thinking is simply the ability to receive inputs and produce "true" outputs, which can be independently tested for veracity. And per emergent properties, the subcomponents themselves do not have to possess a particular trait in order for the proper arrangement of those subcomponents to possess it. A brain cell has no "rationality" organelles, but a brain made of those cells has the capacity for rational thinking.
That said, I admit I have not read deeply into any sort of exchange in which the argument is put to the test, so what I wrote above as the naturalist perspective is possibly superficial. If the argument gets hashed out further to answer those objections, I'd be happy to read it.
If stories are all it takes to avoid a logical conclusion then what you said here is all you need. Naturalists have many stories. At issue is the question, can rationality and will be fully explained in terms of nonrational causes? There are many stories that will say "yes it can" but what does the logic of their metaphysics say?
What is the nature of rationality and what is human agency (will)? What is their Principle of Proportionate Causality, or do they even have one? Emergence, it seems to me, isn't limited by anything, as a matter of principle. Quantum matter can produce galaxies, rationality and nanoscale microchips. That's a nice story but I'm not buying it. Naturalists need to lay out their metaphysics and explain how it all fits together so that "yes it can" makes sense. I have not seen anything from them that makes sense.
"Do you see a different, random color every time you look at a specific object?"
Do you consider the ranking of playing cards to be randomized with every hand you are dealt?
You are conflating the consistent assignment of an arbitrary symbol with the symbol itself not being arbitrary.
"you do not see random colors."
The qualia experience of color is itself an arbitrary internally generated symbol. The consistent association of that arbitrary internally generated symbol makes that symbol no less arbitrary.
"By definition, not a hallucination."
By definition, the perception that there is some sort of extramental object is not a hallucination, but the symbol arbitrarily associated with that extramental object is an hallucination, by definition.
I have given you the tools to make the distinction between the thing itself and the hallucinatory symbol arbitrarily assigned to that real thing. Whether you choose to open your mind enough to grasp that knowledge is up to you.
"At issue is the question, can rationality and will be fully explained in terms of nonrational causes?"
Nature is intrinsically rational.
Natural causes are not non-rational.
The google god tells us...
"Generative AI is experimental. Learn more:
According to The Philosophy Forum, a rational inference requires insight into logical relations. A process of reasoning is rational only if the reasoner sees that Q follows from P"
On deterministic naturalism Q always follows from P. Causality is mechanistic. If P then Q is how naturalistic deterministic materialist causality intrinsically works at base.
That is why mathematics is so successful at describing nature.
Mathematics is a form of logic, perhaps the most rigorous form of rationality.
Logic describes nature so well because nature is intrinsically logical, and therefore intrinsically rational.
We use a formalized system of notation to describe that Q follows from P because we are composed of elements that progress with the intrinsic modality that Q follows from P.
You might be familiar with the NAND gate. It is a very simple logical element that can be described with a simple truth table or expression.
Q = Not (A and B)
Meaning, Q is equal to the inverse of a logical AND of A and B.
An entire computer can be built from just NAND gates, in principle.
In fact, all the computers running all the software on Earth can, in principle, be built from NAND gates.
As a matter of fact, all the computers on Earth are built from even simpler elements than NAND gates. The vast complexities of AI and all the rest are the "emergent" results of myriad simple rational elements.
Rationality requires that Q follows from P.
In nature, at base, Q does follow from P.
Therefore the Argument From Reason is based on an unrealistic question, that of non-rational causes. There is no such thing as a non-rational cause. Causation is intrinsically rational. On deterministic naturalism all causation requires that Q always follows from P, the very essence of rationality.
Nature is intrinsically rational.
Natural causes are not non-rational.
Responses like this are why you fail to convince very many people. It's as irrational as can be. Water flowing down a hill = rational. Chemical reactions = rational. It's all nonsense.
If the argument gets hashed out further to answer those objections, I'd be happy to read it.
Victor assumes that a foundational principle of naturalism is that all there is is just random particles in motion. If one claims that there is order of some sort, that contradicts that particular principle. Rational thought is an orderly process that detects order in the universe and so to believe that rational thought tells us something about the universe would be to contradict the foundational principle. It doesn't matter if you call predictable things "evolution" or "emergent properties" they are still predictable and orderly to some extent and therefore not merely random particles in motion.
In fact to come to the conclusion that the universe is random using reason demonstrates that the universe is not random since your reasoning is not random.
That seems to be what Victor has been arguing.
the symbol arbitrarily associated with that extramental object is an hallucination, by definition.
Except the symbol is only triggered by an external source, a particular light wavelength. Not a hallucination. By definition.
You do understand what concepts and definitions and language are, don't you? Or is this some sort of reductionist materialism thing where you deny those exist and just say whatever you want?
In fact to come to the conclusion that the universe is random using reason demonstrates that the universe is not random since your reasoning is not random.
I'm not sure all naturalists would agree that the processes are "random".
"Water flowing down a hill = rational."
Indeed.
Common usage definitions have their limitations, but nobody here seems willing or able to provide a definition of "rational" for the claim of "non-rational".
ra·tion·al
/ˈraSH(ə)nəl/
1.
based on or in accordance with reason or logic.
So, yes, water flowing down a hill is in accordance with logic.
Q follows from P.
If water is up the hill and if it is released then it will flow down the hill.
There is order to the cosmos.
Causality is in accordance with logic, at base.
Therefore causality is rational at base.
There is no such thing as illogical causality.
All real possibilities are also logical possibilities.
Therefore there is no such thing as a non-rational cause, making the AFR a non-starter.
I'm not sure all naturalists would agree that the processes are "random".
I think you're correct to put "random" in scare quotes in this instance. It depends on how they use the word.
If things happen always or for the most part in particular ways, then that means they don't happen randomly or by chance. Any recognizable process is not random. It has a recognizably predictable beginning, middle and end. I don't think anyone can rationally deny this.
It seems they are using a more restricted use of the term to mean something like "predictable but not designed by God". Which of course is not a scientific statement at all but a theological statement.
Or is this some sort of reductionist materialism thing where you deny those exist and just say whatever you want?
Every argument she puts forth can be cataloged and put into book form with the title: The Argument From Equivocation. She routinely abuses language which only serves to produce a so-called argument that is muddled and incoherent. Water flowing downhill being "rational" is the most recent example.
Common usage definitions have their limitations, but nobody here seems willing or able to provide a definition of "rational" for the claim of "non-rational".
Flowing water being rational is a telling assertion for a few reasons.
When speaking of rationality, most are speaking of a mental process. By this definition, the only way flowing water can be rational is to either assert the presence of a mind within the water, or perhaps to say when one thinks of flowing water and the associated factors around it, then one would rationally expect water to flow downhill. The reality of the flowing water matches rational expectation.
Of course if one defines rationality as as such that flowing water is rational because it operates in accordance with physics, then literally everything made of matter and energy that exists in the universe is rational and nothing is irrational. What we call irrational behavior or beliefs are perfectly rational because the mental states producing the behavior/beliefs are operating in accordance with the laws of physics. So much like hallucination, we have defined irrationality out of existence.
The other problem with this usage of rationality is it isn't engaging Victor's argument, as that is not the way he or Lewis are using it, as far as I can tell. Redefining a word does not defeat an argument.
"The other problem with this usage of rationality is it isn't engaging Victor's argument, as that is not the way he or Lewis are using it, as far as I can tell."
Can you tell?
Lewis wrote so sloppily that even a fellow Christian philosopher dismembered his "argument", which was more like a meandering screed as written in Miracles.
Can you tell what "rational" versus "non-rational" is supposed to mean? How is one to engage in such a sloppy and undefined polemic?
"...then literally everything made of matter and energy that exists in the universe is rational and nothing is irrational."
The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unreasonable_Effectiveness_of_Mathematics_in_the_Natural_Sciences
Maths describe real causal progressions.
Mathematics is a form of logic.
Therefore real causal progressions are logical.
We can think logically because we are composed of elements that progress in intrinsically logical ways.
"The other problem with this usage of rationality is it isn't engaging Victor's argument,"
How so, I mean, what is Victor's argument? It is so vague and sloppily worded that one is reduced to looking up words in the dictionary just to try to figure out what he is even trying to say.
Consider:
bmiller
"Victor assumes that a foundational principle of naturalism is that all there is is just random particles in motion. If one claims that there is order of some sort, that contradicts that particular principle."
So, longtime reader of Victor, bmiller, has that interpretation of Victor's position.
I have engaged directly with that position.
There is an observed "unreasonable effectiveness" of mathematics in describing causality.
Mathematics is logic.
Hence, causality is fundamentally in accordance with logic.
That which is rational is in accordance with logic.
Therefore causality is fundamentally rational.
bmiller has interpreted Victor's position as asserting that on naturalism stuff is just sort of flying around any old which way, lacking order, and therefore cannot account for the observed order of our human rational thought.
I contradict that assertion of Victor and Lewis as interpreted by bmiller in saying just the opposite, that everything progresses with order, causality is ordered at base, causality always progresses in accordance with logic, and therefore the primary assertion of Lewis and Victor does not exist. There are no fundamentally non-rational causes because all causality is rational at base, that is, in accordance with logic.
Rationality entails aboutness and content and intent. Water flowing down a hill does not entail any of these, hence you are a troll who either purposely abuses language for fun or you're exceptionally dumb.
SteveK
"Water flowing downhill being "rational" is the most recent example."
Ok, so the dictionary is wrong, "rational" does not mean "in accordance with logic"?
" routinely abuses language"
I looked up the word and used the definition provided in the dictionary. I thought you guys would approve of that!
Lewis originally used the word "irrational". Anscombe criticized him for that so he later changed to using "non-rational".
Either way "ir" or "non" we still need to know what "rational" means. The whole argument is based on it, yet nobody here seems able to tell me, precisely, what "rational" is supposed to mean, such that we can determine what "ir" or "non" "rational" would then mean.
Not that you guys owe me anything, so fine, I looked it up.
I found that
rational = in accordance with logic
Ok, fine, since all causality is in accordance with logic, then all causality is rational.
Therefore, there are no such things as "ir" or "non" rational causes, and the AFR is a total non-starter, over before it barely has begun, hopelessly defective out of the gate.
I guess at least some naturalists have surrendered to final causality.
SteveK said...
"Rationality entails aboutness and content and intent"
That's not what the dictionary says, but that's OK, common usage dictionary definitions can have significant limitations.
Just because the dictionary defines, say, "rational" or "hallucination" in a certain way does not obligate you or I to accept that definition as philosophically sound or comprehensive.
You seem to be considering human rationality in a fuller sense, a whole process of thought and analysis.
How much do you suppose you know about the mechanisms behind your thoughts, in particular when you do things like multiply numbers in your head, or figure out a math problem, or analyze a syllogistic argument?
I mean really, how much can you tell me, based on microscopic measurements, detailed scientific analysis, molecular biological research, and applications of all investigative techniques available, precisely, what happens in your brain when you reason rationally?
If you look around for writings on The Argument From Reason you will not find much from 1947 Lewis because that writing was such a mess. Lewis himself tried to clean it up, and others have made subsequent attempts. Typically, an updated version will start something like this
"1. No belief is rationally inferred if it can be fully explained in terms of nonrational causes."
So, in your expanded version
No belief that has aboutness and content and intent can be logically derived from non-rational causes.
That is just begging the question! The first premise is the very thing that the argument is trying to show, that naturalism cannot account for rational reasoning!
Again, the AFR is a non-starter. It just assumes ad hoc as the first premise the very thing it is trying to deductively prove, how absurd.
From Wiki
"Support: Reasoning requires insight into logical relations. A process of reasoning (P therefore Q) is rational only if the reasoner sees that Q follows from, or is supported by, P, and accepts Q on that basis"
In all causality Q does follow from P.
That is how causality works, Q follows from P. That is why we can write mathematical descriptions of causality, because Q follows from P at base.
We can reason that Q follows from P because we are composed of elements for which Q necessarily follows from P by intrinsic properties of those elements.
How is Premise 1 anything but patently false?
SteveK said...
"Rationality entails aboutness and content and intent"
So, in your expanded version:
*No belief that has aboutness and content and intent can be logically derived from causes that do not reason with aboutness and content and intent.*
That's just the fallacy of composition. Once again, AFR is a failure at hello.
A bridge can only be built with parts that are each little bridges.
A watch can only be built with parts that are each little watches.
A computer can only be built with parts that are each little computers.
A brain can only be built with parts that are each little brains.
A system of content and aboutness and logical reasoning and intentionality can only be built with parts that each have content and aboutness and logical reasoning and intentionality.
How does the AFR even begin to make any sense at all?
A bridge can only be built with parts that are each little bridges.
I'm not saying that at all. The aboutness and content that rationality works with are universals, not particulars. A bridge is a universal concept. The mind grasps "bridge-ness", not this bridge and that bridge so what the mind is grasping does not exist anywhere in reality as a particular. There is no "P therefore Q", no mathematical equations, that describes what doesn't exist in reality.
Anyway, you jumped the shark when you said "Water flowing down a hill = rational". You really are THAT dumb. That's the main takeaway as far as I'm concerned.
SteveK,
"There is no "P therefore Q", no mathematical equations, that describes what doesn't exist in reality."
So, all mathematical equations describe an ontologically actual reality?
So, if I write equations describing 43 dimensional space that means space really has 43 dimensions?
"you jumped the shark when you said "Water flowing down a hill = rational""
According to the dictionary definition that is true.
According to the dictionary "rational" is that which is "in accordance with logic".
Water flowing down a hill is "in accordance with logic".
Therefore, given the dictionary definition, water flowing down a hill is "rational".
If you have a different definition for the word "rational", fine, what is it?
I mean precisely, not just a few vague things that you think rationality entails.
What is the full, complete, comprehensive, precise definition of the word "rational"?
You say I am "dumb" for what you assert is a misuse of the word rational, but I merely applied the dictionary definition of the word.
You don't like the dictionary definition? Fine. What is yours?
If a bridge is more than the sum of its parts then that just is committing to formal causation. It seems naturalism now allows both formal and final causes.
So, all mathematical equations describe an ontologically actual reality?
Your "P therefore Q" put that into my mind so tell me how I can trust a universal concept that I cannot observe or put to the test? That's the issue that the AFR is attempting to address. The statement "All men are mortal" involves universal concepts that I cannot test with anything other than my mind. Is a man still a man if he has no legs or is blind? Is a man still a man if he identifies as a dog? If P therefore Q puts it into my mind that a man is a dog if he says he's a dog then by your logic, he's a dog because P therefore Q is always logical.
Water flowing down a hill is "in accordance with logic".
You're getting more dumb by the minute. Stop.
It seems naturalism now allows both formal and final causes.
Some defenders of naturalism - those who say water flowing down a hill is rational, and those who say grandchildren are moved by their deceased grandfathers - seem to have trouble grasping reality.
So, if I write equations describing 43 dimensional space that means space really has 43 dimensions?
This statement is full of universal concepts that cannot be tested. What is a dimension, or space or an equation or 43? Whatever your P therefore Q puts into anyone's mind is correct and true because it's all logical, LOL. I'm looking at 43 dimensional space right now because my mind, thanks to the blind forces of naturalism, sees reality that way. Prove my understanding of universals wrong.
bmiller
"If a bridge is more than the sum of its parts"
A bridge is not more than the "sum" of its parts.
Lots of bricks arranged bridgewise is something I can walk over.
There is no little bridge in each brick.
"how I can trust a universal concept that I cannot observe or put to the test?"
The cosmos never promised you a rose garden.
What makes you suppose you are somehow owed the capability to reasonably trust your perceived extramental reality as true?
*Water flowing down a hill is "in accordance with logic".
You're getting more dumb by the minute. Stop.*
What part of water flowing down a hill violates logic?
If none, then water flowing down a hill is in accordance with logic.
From Merriam Webster regarding logic:
1. a science that deals with the principles and criteria of validity of inference and demonstration : the science of the formal principles of reasoning
2. a branch or variety of logic
3. a branch of semiotics
4. the formal principles of a branch of knowledge
5. a particular mode of reasoning viewed as valid or faulty
6. interrelation or sequence of facts or events when seen as inevitable or predictable
7. The arrangement of circuit elements (as in a computer) needed for computation
8. Something that forces a decision apart from or in opposition to reason
Of all the definitions of "logic" offered here, Stardusty is apparently using (6), which is one of the few definitions that doesn't involve reasoning, a mental faculty. The argument from reason is not using that definition, thus that definition can't be used against the argument.
Much like rationality, as demonstrated above, using logic in that manner means that nothing is illogical, thus the word is rendered useless. Just things doing what things do.
Lots of bricks arranged bridgewise is something I can walk over.
arranged bridgewise = form of a bridge. ie formal cause.
Justin Barnard gives his analysis of CS Lewis' experience of naturalism.
https://www.uu.edu/journals/renewingminds/4/RM_Issue4_Dec2013_Barnard.pdf
Even before he was a Christian, Lewis grasped what he would
later call the “cardinal difficulty” of Naturalism. In 1924, Lewis commented in his diary about reading “A Free Man’s Worship,” an essay
by the atheist philosopher, Bertrand Russell. In his essay, Russell
echoes the ancient Stoics in arguing that human hope can only be
built “on the firm foundation of unyielding despair,” of recognizing that all of our experiences “are but the outcome of accidental
collocations of atoms.” Lewis thought that Russell had offered a
“very clear and noble statement of what I myself believed a few
years ago.” But Lewis thought that Russell had not faced “the real
difficulty – that our ideals are after all a natural product, facts with
a relation to all other facts, and cannot survive the condemnation
of the fact as a whole. The Promethean attitude would be tenable
only if we were really members of some other whole outside of the
real whole: wh[ich] we’re not.”
Lots of bricks arranged bridgewise is something I can walk over.
There is no little bridge in each brick.
Well, according to what you've said so far, if some "P therefore Q" put it into his mind that bricks contain many little bridges because things can walk over the grains of sand and mortar - that would be correct, because the process is logical.
What makes you suppose you are somehow owed the capability to reasonably trust your perceived extramental reality as true?
I only think it's possible because I think we are created to have trustworthy perceptions.
Kevin,
The argument from reason is not using that definition, thus that definition can't be used against the argument.
You are correct but that won't stop SP from insisting that his definition is the only valid one, because Science(TM) or something.
Much like rationality, as demonstrated above, using logic in that manner means that nothing is illogical, thus the word is rendered useless. Just things doing what things do.
SP has denied the existence of the mind several times so it makes sense that he would pick the definition that support eliminative materialism.
"Stardusty is apparently using (6), which is one of the few definitions that doesn't involve reasoning, a mental faculty. "
*In accordance with*
Mathematics is a subset of logic, that is, the human expression of logical relations.
Mathematics is "unreasonably effective" with describing the cosmos.
Therefore, the cosmos proceeds in accordance with mathematics.
Hence, the cosmos proceeds in accordance with logic.
"CS Lewis' experience of naturalism."
Right, Lewis does not really make arguments, at least sound philosophical arguments.
He was an apologist, a polemicist, an author of popular fiction, first and foremost one who used a great deal of overwrought drama about despair and ruins and on and on about his "experience" of the human condition.
He didn't make sound philosophical arguments, he despaired in writing about the plight of humankind.
If one shares his general level of hand wringing despair I suppose that sort of writing resonates. I don't share his despair so to me the hack level attempts at philosophy from Lewis are just inane crybaby drivel.
"But Lewis thought that Russell had not faced “the real
difficulty – that our ideals are after all a natural product, facts with
a relation to all other facts, and cannot survive the condemnation
of the fact as a whole"
That is simple, there is nothing outside of everything to compare the whole to as being better or worse. The whole is just the whole.
There can be no basis for objective morality, objective right or wrong.
Victor posted a wartime lecture by Lewis on objective morality. Of course, Lewis provided no philosophical argument for the reality of objective morality, just another one of his doomsday crybaby screeds about how much in despair he and all of us must be if there were no such thing as objective morality.
Well, there isn't, there cannot be, and I am not. If he were alive and I met him I would just tell him to grow up, get over yourself, enjoy the good things you have in this life because this is all you get.
I do not live my life on a foundation of "unyielding despair" or anything of the sort. I appreciate how lucky I am to be an American living today in such a time of relative peace, health, order, luxury, and opportunity.
Sure, there are a lot of people with real reasons for despair, all kinds of poverty, sickness, and losses of many kinds. But Lewis had all the advantages, he lived a rich and luxurious life, relatively, yet he managed to mope around in despair half the time, quite pathetic.
SteveK,
"I only think it's possible because I think we are created to have trustworthy perceptions."
Well, sorry to be the one to break it to you, but...
All sense data is false.
Our senses never tell us the truth with certainty about the extramental reality, never.
Unless you consider something like this to be true
97.3 = 100
Assuming that there really is a thing out there at all.
If you are going to speculate that god exists then you are the most likely thing to be god. I mean, at least you know for sure you exist, so a known existent being as god is infinitely more likely than some invisible undetectable speculation being god, right?
But, let's just agree to suppose that our senses provide some crude indication of an extramental reality.
On that provisional postulate, we can reason logically and then we find that the cosmos progresses very reliably in accordance with our logical reasoning.
Premise 1
"1. No belief is rationally inferred if it can be fully explained in terms of nonrational causes."
Depending how one defines "rational" the argument is over at hello.
1.If "rational" means "in accordance with logic" then there are no non-rational causes. Causations progresses at base in accordance with forces that can be mathematically described.
Math is a form of logic.
Causation, that is, all causation at base, is therefore in accordance with logic and thus rational.
2.Fallacy of composition, which means it is fallacious in a deductive argument to posit that what is true for the whole must be true for what the whole is composed of. Here the definition of "rational" doesn't much matter, call it X.
""1. No belief is X inferred if it can be fully explained in terms of nonX causes."
Of course we explain the macro in terms of the micro wherein the micro is not the same as the macro.
3.Begging the question (circular reasoning). Premise 1 is just a wording of the conclusion! Aye yie yie. That is the conclusion, that there has to be a logical thinking mind to explain our logical thinking minds, so if you start with the premise that there cannot be a logical thinking mind that is explained without a logical thinking mind, then you will reach the conclusion that there must be a logical thinking mind to explain the logical thinking mind.
4.Infinite regress. If all logical thinking minds require a logical thinking mind to explain the logical thinking mind then the logical thinking mind that explains the logical thinking mind itself needs a logical thinking mind, ad infinitum.
Stopping the regress is irrational because it violates the first principle.
Continuing the regress is irrational because it forms a non-converging infinite real regress.
Therefore the premise, Premise 1 of the AFR, is incoherent, that is, it intrinsically violates the rules of logic.
Or do you consider it rational to assert an infinity of real gods arranged in a causal chain with each one explaining the next?
On Premise 1 of the AFR god cannot exist, because god has rational beliefs, and a being with rational beliefs must come from another being with rational beliefs, god's god, and so forth ad infinitum.
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