Thursday, April 09, 2020

The argument from reason and the triangular garden


Consider, for example, a person who figures out the area of her triangular backyard garden using the Pythagorean Theorem. She decides how much of various kinds of seeds to purchase, in part, because of the area she has calculated for the garden she is going to plant. So, protons, neutrons, and electrons in her body, not to mention other protons, neutrons and electrons, are in certain places because of her knowledge of the Pythagorean Theorem. The Pythagorean Theorem is the ground of the beliefs she comes to hold, which produce considerable effects in the physical world. But, if the physical is causally closed, how does the truth of the Pythagorean Theorem have to do with the occurrence of her belief as a psychological event? Protons, neutrons, and electrons are determined, not by the truth of the Pythagorean Theorem, but by the physical laws governing protons, neutrons and electrons. The Theorem is not in space and time, but protons, neutrons, and electrons are affected only by things that are in space and time. Therefore, if naturalism is true, she cannot have used the Pythagorean Theorem to lay out her backyard garden. Since she did use the Theorem, naturalism is false.


15 comments:

Martin Cooke said...

A naturalist could say that she used her experience of calculating, in ways that are called "the Pythagorean Theorem," and could also have a naturalist theory of what such experience is.

One Brow said...

Abstraction if a purely physical event, used by organisms with no mind at all. Virus invade cells by using the same cellular gateways as food (or other chemicals), because the cell only identifies food by a limited set of chemical interactions, that is, an abstraction. So, the abstraction of the Pythagorean Theorem can also be a purely physical phenomenon.

Victor Reppert said...

The physical is ordinarily defined in terms of the nonmental. It lacks intentionality, purpose, normativity, and first-person perspective. Otherwise, it is not physical. Unless the rules for what is allowed into physics are radically changed, the truth of the Pythagorean theorem can't be relevant to a physical event, assuming that the physical is causally closed.

One Brow said...

Dr. Reppert,

That seems to me to by trying to win the argument by definition, rather than by analysis. If the Pythagorean Theorem is a particular arrangement of neural connections, or is physically dependent on the arrangements of neural connections, then it is part of the physical world and its use does not violate causal closure.

bmiller said...

The physical is ordinarily defined in terms of the nonmental. It lacks intentionality, purpose, normativity, and first-person perspective. Otherwise, it is not physical.

This has been the standard definition of the "physical" since at least the time of Descartes. Intentionality, purpose, normativity (other than in the statistical sense) and first person perspective cannot be measured in increments of space and time and so were separated out from those attributes that could be measured in such a way. So Descartes divided the world up into the physical universe ( res extensa) and the mind (res cogitans).

Unless the rules for what is allowed into physics are radically changed, the truth of the Pythagorean theorem can't be relevant to a physical event, assuming that the physical is causally closed.

So, since the time of Descartes and the banishing of the final cause from the physical universe, the Pythagorean Theorem, being a construct of the mind, is not considered a physical event (since it is not something that physics can detect or measure). Yet the Pythagorean Theorem apparently exists. So strict materialists have a dilemma.

Some like eliminative materialists, tell us that these things are an illusion (with the incoherent can of worms that involves), while others smuggle the "res cogitans"* into explanations without realizing it.

*This assumes your starting point is Cartesian Philosophy forward and ignores the prior Aristotelian Philosophical view.

StardustyPsyche said...

Victor,
"Therefore, if naturalism is true, she cannot have used the Pythagorean Theorem to lay out her backyard garden. Since she did use the Theorem, naturalism is false. "
There is no such thing as a triangular object.

No real object is a triangle or can be described precisely as a triangle.

A triangle is an abstraction for which there is no physical realization.

She did not use the theorem to precisely model her garden, rather, she used the theorem as an abstraction that approximates her real garden.

Naturalism is true and abstractions can be used to approximate natural realities. She can use an abstraction to approximate a real lay out of the garden and get close enough to reality that she is able to function.

Victor, this attempt to falsify naturalism is a non-starter.

Naturalism, properly formulated, is an entirely self consistent world view, beginning with what Aquinas would say is manifest and evident to our senses.

By contrast, all modern forms of theism presently in general circulation, and on offer, are hopelessly self contradictory given that same starting point, what is manifest and evident to our sense.

StardustyPsyche said...

Victor,
"The physical is ordinarily defined in terms of the nonmental."
Since the mental is a process of the physical I reject this distinction.

"It lacks intentionality, purpose, normativity, and first-person perspective. "
Simple physical objects do not have the structure needed for intentionality etc. Physical systems with sufficient structure, such as our brains, do have the experiences of intentionality etc.

"Otherwise, it is not physical. "
Everything is physical or a process of the physical.

The concept of a triangle is a real physical process in the brain, but has no external existential reality as conceived.

"Unless the rules for what is allowed into physics are radically changed, the truth of the Pythagorean theorem can't be relevant to a physical event,"
False. The relevance is as a trend line, an idealized element in superposition with other idealized elements that in combination they describe certain realities to a close approximation.

The great relevance of our mathematical idealizations of reality is that they are shown to be highly accurate trend lines that converge on reality over vastly varied circumstances and are thus considered to be valid approximations, approximations that are close enough to enable us to fly to the moon and all the rest.

" assuming that the physical is causally closed. "
Yes, the physical is causally closed.

The term "immaterial existence" is incoherent.
The term "mental cause" is incoherent.

Naturalism, properly formulated, is entirely self consistent.
Theism, in all its present forms in general circulation, is utterly incoherent.

Victor Reppert said...

There is something contradictory about accepting a definition of the physical that excludes the mind (a development on the part of people who believed in the soul), saying, in essence, the physical is not the mental. Then, when we get to the brain, we say that the physical is the mental after all.

One Brow said...

The mind is the emergent patterns of behavior exhibited by the brain. The mind is only excluded when used in the sense of a mind separate from the brain.

bmiller said...

I can measure length with a ruler. I can measure weight with a scale. I can measure time with clock.

What instrument does one use to measure the "emergent patterns of behavior" exhibited by the brain? And what exactly are "emergent patterns of behavior"?

StardustyPsyche said...

Victor,
"There is something contradictory about accepting a definition of the physical that excludes the mind (a development on the part of people who believed in the soul), saying, in essence, the physical is not the mental. Then, when we get to the brain, we say that the physical is the mental after all. "
There is no self contradiction in the naturalist position, properly expressed, none whatsoever.

The there is no such thing as a mind separate from the physical. What we call the mind is a process of the physical.

In the brain the process of the physical is what we call the mind.

When the brain ceases to function and dies then all mental activity ceases becuase the mental was never a thing unto itself, rather, always a process of the physical, so without the functional structure of the physical brain there can be no mental activity.

No self inconsistency whatsoever can be rationally identified in naturalism when naturalism is properly expressed.

StardustyPsyche said...

Victor,
"There is something contradictory about accepting a definition of the physical that excludes the mind"
On naturalism the definition of the physical excludes the mind as an independent entity, but does not exclude the mind as a colloquial or first person expression of perceptions of certain processes of the physical.

"Then, when we get to the brain, we say that the physical is the mental after all"
There is no "after all", rather, the mental was defined as a process of the physical all along.

This reminds me of Dennis Bonnette over at Strange Notions, continually arguing that naturalism is somehow self defeating. His arguments always turn out to be based on oddly misconstrued, and indeed strange notions of, what naturalism is and means, and how it is formulated.

Claims that naturalism is somehow self contradictory or self defeating invariably turn out to depend on straw man characterizations of naturalism, or other related fallacies.

One Brow said...

bmiller said...
I can measure length with a ruler. I can measure weight with a scale. I can measure time with clock.

What instrument does one use to measure the "emergent patterns of behavior" exhibited by the brain? And what exactly are "emergent patterns of behavior"?


I don't think that the only things that are real are those that can be measured with instruments. For example, we both believe there is a distinction (well, a continuum, at any rate) between life and death., but there is no instrument that measures the amount of life.

Life is an emergent pattern of behavior that depends upon the chemistry of the elements in the living thing. Were you looking for a definition?

bmiller said...

I don't think that the only things that are real are those that can be measured with instruments. For example, we both believe there is a distinction (well, a continuum, at any rate) between life and death., but there is no instrument that measures the amount of life.

I suspect you can come up with a better example right? Because we can tell whether things are alive or dead by certain observations.

Were you looking for a definition?

I asked the question to highlight the division of philosophy imposed by the pre-moderns and flesh out how materialists square their tacit acceptance of that division (and the conclusions that followed) with things like the Pythagorean Theorem which has no length, breadth or width.

Life is an emergent pattern of behavior that depends upon the chemistry of the elements in the living thing.

But what is different between that statement and this statement:

Chemical reactions are an emergent pattern of behavior that depends upon the chemistry of the elements in the chemical thing.

I can measure the emergent patterns of chemical reactions. So if life is merely patterns that depends upon the chemistry of the elements in the thing, then we should be able to measure life. Right?

One Brow said...

bmiller said...
I suspect you can come up with a better example right? Because we can tell whether things are alive or dead by certain observations.

Exactly so! Much as we can tell whether the brain is exhibiting certain patterns by observations, such as the observation of patterns of black and white on a screen.

I asked the question to highlight the division of philosophy imposed by the pre-moderns and flesh out how materialists square their tacit acceptance of that division (and the conclusions that followed) with things like the Pythagorean Theorem which has no length, breadth or width.

I do not see a division between the abstract and the material, but a superposition.

Life is an emergent pattern of behavior that depends upon the chemistry of the elements in the living thing.

But what is different between that statement and this statement:

'Chemical reactions are an emergent pattern of behavior that depends upon the chemistry of the elements in the chemical thing.'

I can measure the emergent patterns of chemical reactions. So if life is merely patterns that depends upon the chemistry of the elements in the thing, then we should be able to measure life. Right?


I agree you can measure some of the facets of chemical reactions (color, rate of dissolution, etc.). You can also measure some of the facets of life (pulse, respiration, etc.). Just as the latter does not measure "life", the former does not measure "chemical reaction".