Prospectivist_Objectivist
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Posts posted by Prospectivist_Objectivist
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Makes sense-- it's probably reasonable to assume most Marxist, etc. proponents have had their errors pointed out to them at least once (probably more). Thanks!
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What you've each said makes sense and squares perfectly with something Rand said in a 1971 issue of "The Objectivist"
: "Moral judgment must be objective, i.e., based on perceivable, demonstrable facts. A man's moral character must be judged on the basis of his actions, his statements and his conscious convictions—not on the basis of inferences (usually, spurious) about his subconscious."Still, how can statements like
"In our century, there have been countless mass movements dedicated to inherently dishonest ideas—e.g., Nazism, Communism, non-objective art, non-Aristotelian logic, egalitarianism... The originators, leaders and intellectual spokesmen of all such movements are necessarily evaders on a major scale; they are not merely mistaken, but are crusading irrationalists"
be reconciled with Rand's position? Why are they "necessarily evaders" and not just mistaken? Evaders deserve far harsher moral judgment than simply mistaken persons, so the contention that they are "necessarily evaders" needs a whole lot of support. To be fair, I don't think "Fact and Value" would have been an appropriate setting for Peikoff to expand on those points, but they need to be supported somehow. Does he address them in other writings? Does Rand?
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I'm referring to the essay "Fact and Value" by Peikoff:
http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pag...=objectivism_fv
This paragraph makes perfect sense:
"Just as every “is” implies an “ought,” so every identification of an idea’s truth or falsehood implies a moral evaluation of the idea and of its advocates. The evaluation, to repeat, comes from the answer to two related questions: what kind of volitional cause led people to this idea? and, to what kind of consequences will this idea lead in practice?"
But I'm unclear as to the epistemology which allows Peikoff (or anyone) to reliably draw conclusions like the following:
I) "Now we must note that falsehood does not necessarily imply vice; honest errors of knowledge are possible. But such errors are not nearly so common as some people wish to think, especially in the field of philosophy. In our century, there have been countless mass movements dedicated to inherently dishonest ideas—e.g., Nazism, Communism, non-objective art, non-Aristotelian logic, egalitarianism... The originators, leaders and intellectual spokesmen of all such movements are necessarily evaders on a major scale; they are not merely mistaken, but are crusading irrationalists."
II) But now I understand the basic cause; I see the attacks’ philosophic meaning. In the minds of the “tolerance”-people, there are only two possibilities in regard to moral judgment: moralizing or emotionalism, dogma or whim, i.e., intrinsicism or subjectivism. Such people literally have no concept of “objectivity” in regard to values. Their accusations, therefore, are expressions of their own actual philosophy and inner state. The typical (though not invariable) pattern in this kind of case is that the accuser started out in Objectivism as a dogmatist, cursing or praising people blindly, in obedience, as he thought, to his new-found “authorities.” Then at last his pent-up resentment at this self-made serfdom erupts—and he becomes an angry subjectivist, denouncing the “excessive anger” of those who make moral judgments. The swing from intrinsicism to subjectivism, however, is not a significant change; these philosophies are merely two forms in which the notion of “non-objective value” rules a man’s brain.
As much respect as I'd like to have for Peikoff, this all strikes me as unsupported psychobabble. It seems to me that assertions from psychology always fail for two major reasons. First, the (nontrivial) psychological motivations of an debater necessarily have no relationship with the logical validity or invalidity of his/her argument. Second, assertions from psychology cannot ever be supported by meaningful evidence, so they cannot be accepted or refuted on the basis of available evidence. It makes sense only to dismiss them entirely.
Can anyone defend Peikoff's epistemology here? Seems hopeless to me.
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IOW, I don't think PO is employing a "stolen concept" here. It's an "if then" argument. We don't know for sure that the "if" part is true (that the universe really is determined, through and through), but if it's true, then there's this paradox.
My solution would be a compatibilism-with-a-twist one, like Dennett's, as follows: we misunderstand what volition really is. IOW the kind of free will that philosophers have been puzzled about does indeed clash with determinism, and probably (given science's creeping conquest of every corner of the world) doesn't exist. Fortunately for us, that's not the kind of free will we demonstrably have, so therefore it's not worth worrying ourselves about it. The kind of free will we do have, and that is worth bothering about, is the kind of free will a deterministic system could have. And, far from being impossible in a deterministic world, it actually requires (at least some) determinism in a world for it to have traction!
e.g., suppose you have a robot, a perfectly deterministic system; yet it still has to make "choices" - it's little positronic brain (or whatever) will clickety-clack away, in a perfectly deterministic fashion, and it will have a range of calculated options, and calculate a "preferred" option, and so long as nothing prevents it from doing so, it will execute that option. Generally speaking, it will avoid hazards and cleave to things that are beneficial in relation to its programmed goals. Is our case absolutely categorically different, or are we extremely sophisticated version of the same thing, able to self-re-program, update goals as we go? Organic robots?
I appreciate the fact that you understand my position. Most who have argued here have immediately switched into must-prove-determinism-false mode, and consequently their arguments have not addressed the issues I put forth originally (for example, see post #114 by hunterrose-- since the paradox is "if-then" and since the "if" conditions are not assumed, his accusation of an "unsupported paradox" is meaningless).
I'm also a fan of Dennet's compatibilism, and I think Grames's contention that "dependence on initial conditions" does not imply "determined" would ultimately have come around to something similar (maybe he advanced it to that point in his other thread? I haven't gotten there yet). Miovas's robotic repetition of the same unsupported contention-- and his glossing over the fact that if he was organically determined as such, then he would not be able to distinguish between that condition and his asserted reality-- probably was not deliberately self-satirizing, but picking on him isn't fair.
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...introspection is certainly a fine guide to the contents of one's own consciousness, but rather a poor guide to the contents of others'.
Precisely.
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So, instead of accusing us of moralizing and psychologizing -- check your premises because your theory is wrong.
It isn't my theory, and the purpose of this thread was never to promote it (see my original post). This is the third time in this thread you have demonstrated a fundamental lack of understanding about what is going on (see posts #70 and #77 for the other two). Since this is the third time, I offer the following unsolicited advice: it might benefit you to make sure you understand both the topic of discussion and the claims of other posters before posting yourself.
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The "author" responds as follows:
This is laughable. That was post #41 in a 100 post thread, it sure took you long enough to work up your dudgeon.
First, the quote was not even addressed to you. Methinks you doth protest too much.
Second, not one bit of the passage you quoted is an attack on crizon's character or moral status, it is merely a proposed explanation for how crizon got into his predicament. And it is a predicament to be so utterly captivated by an abstract scientific principle that one denies the self evident. That path doesn't just lead to rationalism, it is rationalism. It was speculative and perhaps it is off the mark, only crizon can say. But at 18 or so and coming at these ideas for the first time he is not guilty of anything (except trying my patience, but I consent to that by continuing dialog with him).
Third, the quoted text was in fact directly responsive to post #40 where that author made the rhetorical appeal analogous to the 10,000 Frenchmen (who, in legend, can't be wrong.) It was not addressed to the main topic of the thread but a digression, and your inability follow the back-links in the quoted text blocks is no defect of mine.
Fourth, it is a rejection of the principle that knowledge is hierarchical to reject an axiom because it has inconvenient consequences upon a derivative idea. If you are going to reject the principle that knowledge is hierarchical, why care about the axiomatic status of anything? Axioms are useless if you can in principle start with any atom of knowledge and organize a world-view and philosophy around it.
Fifth, the Chris Wolf essay is both spectacularly wrong-headed and totally inapplicable. It is inapplicable because I didn't do any of the things that essay is about, and it is wrong because "tolerationism" is wrong. There are plenty of other threads about "Fact vs. Value" so there is no need to go over that subject here.
Sixth, "dependent on initial conditions" is off topic, which is about determinism and things which are or purported to be determined by their initial conditions and the "laws of physics". I have a new and good substantive on-topic reply in post #98 of this thread.
"First" and "Third" are irrelevant because the original addressee of the quote is irrelevant; the point is that I asked the author to further substantiate his claim and he repeatedly failed to to so.
"Second" is irrelevant because I did not accuse the author of attacking Crizon's moral status. My reference of the other article had to do solely with arguments from psychology. The ensuing straw-manning is irrelevant.
"Fourth" assumes a conclusion which has not yet been demonstrated.
"Fifth" straw-mans (see "second") and so is irrelevant.
"Sixth" fails to demonstrate how "dependent on initial conditions" is disconnected from "determinism," but since a new thread has been created, I have no reason to push this point.
It follows that the author's original claim remains badly unsubstantiated. (His claim that my post is "laughable" clearly does him no favors in light of this fact.)
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It is also no coincidence that the posters most frequently picking fights on this issue are teenagers and college students.
The answer is the a priori conceptual framework you bring to the issue. In the first lecture of Dr. Peikoff's Art of Thinking course he identifies the problem of Clashing Contexts. You have learned and automatized the perspective of a solver of physics problems so well you cannot conceive of causality in any terms other than the one-way open-loop entropy increasing collisions of billiard balls in the elementary Newtonian/Cartesian way. No matter what your difficulties of comprehension are, there is no contradiction of physics involved in causation that works top-down in addition to bottom-up in some systems. Those special systems are physical manifestations of recursion, examples of which are living creatures, conceptual consciousness, and attractors in non-linear dynamic systems. None of these topics are covered in AP physics classes or freshman physics, so naturally your own understanding of causality omits them.
Several times I asked the author of this post to give clear examples of systems which are not dependent on their initial physical conditions, and he/she repeatedly refused to do so. His failure in this regard renders this argument regrettably unsubstantiated. Additionally, the straw-manning of requests to give clear examples of systems which are not dependent on their initial physical conditions into claims that all reality might be understood as one-variable linear equations is irrelevant, as are misrepresentations of any argument.
Most importantly: the claim that understanding volition requires a non-elementary understanding of causality thoroughly refutes the claim that volition is axiomatic.
Finally, the other day I was wondering why Objectivism has not gained more traction either in academia or with the public as a whole. I stumbled across an outstanding explanation, which can be read in full here: http://www.jeffcomp.com/faq/wrong.html . The author of that article (rightly) criticizes a fallacy which dominates the above-quoted argument: the fallacy of assertions from psychology. This fallacy lives in such assertions as
"The answer is the a priori conceptual framework you bring to the issue..."
"You have learned and automatized the perspective of a solver of physics problems so well you cannot conceive of causality in any terms other than..."
Assertions from psychology always fail for two major reasons. First, the (nontrivial) psychological motivations of an debater necessarily have no relationship with the logical validity or invalidity of his/her argument. Second, assertions from psychology cannot ever be supported by meaningful evidence, so they cannot be accepted or refuted on the basis of available evidence. It makes sense only to dismiss them entirely.
It follows that the above-quoted argument is not productive. (The author's attempts at condescension clearly do him/her no favors in light of this fact.)
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...but if the claim of the determinist is that everything can be predicted...
That is not the claim of determinism. Please read back, as this has already been discussed at length.
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The reason I'm being somewhat of a smart ass regarding some of my comments is that if you don't like the way I am arguing and request that I change the methodology of my own mind, then you are conceding that I do have the capability of cognitive self-regulation, even while claiming that I don't. This is such an obvious contradiction that it is amusing that you would hold onto it so fervently.
But that's just it: it isn't a contradiction. In the language of free will, we hope you will change the methodology of your own thinking, and every time you choose not do so and make one of your "smart ass" remarks, you only demonstrate your own failure to understand the complexity of the question at hand. In the language of determinism, we hope your cognition has been determined such that you will recognize the errors in your previous method of (determined) argument, and every time that appears not to be the case, we are disappointed. To claim an "obvious contradiction" is to showcase your unfortunate lack of understanding over and over again.
Of course, picking on you isn't fair. Contentions ought to be treated according to presentations of their best arguments, not according to presentations evidently lacking in understanding. Grames has a better grasp of what's going on, and we've been having a more productive discussion. You're welcome to join us at any time.
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Amen, to that!
You're just accepting the same unsupported assertion. A determinist would argue something like this: "the fact that we had to learn to use the brain to understand its true nature does not imply that we fully understood how the brain works when we were learning to use it. It is entirely possible that we can use our minds to discover that our cognition is fully determined; no contradiction follows." (Of course, the paradox I illustrated still presents problems, and Grames has been the only possibly-effective challenger of the determinist position so far.)
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Causation is identity in action. The throw of the ball altered the identity of the ball by adding a certain energy of motion to it. The ball has no concept of the past nor does it plot its trajectory into the future; it simply does what it must moment by moment. Concepts of past and future are valid but epistemological not metaphysical. The referents of the concepts are ideas, memories and imaginings respectively.
So why couldn't determinism follow from the epistemological concepts of past and future?
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Given whatever information we have (even an astounding, yet finite, amount of information) one can always say that I may have made a different decision given the initial conditions (even that it may have turned out with different odds of happening that it turned out to), and so we have volition in the only sense that it is meaningful to speak of it.
This is where your explanation goes wrong-- if the universe is determined, then you can't ever say that you may have made a different decision. (Or you could, but you'd be wrong.) Ever since the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle became cannon, no legitimate determinist has argued that we will ever be able to model the universe in a way which will predict what is going to happen to very complex systems with precision. That is not the determinist position. Hence I agree that even if determinism is true, it doesn't really help us with our day-to-day lives because it adds no element of predictability or guidance. (This is what Mr. Movias failed to understand about the determinist position earlier in the discussion.) But I'm not ready to concede that it would have absolutely no philosophical consequences-- that's a discussion for another thread, though.
You misunderstand the nature of my argument, but I didn't emphasize it enough. Determinism abuses concepts of time.There is no metaphysical past, there is no metaphysical future, therefore determinism has no metaphysical meaning. All physical systems are their present conditions. To say the past determines the future makes the error of reifying the past. To say the present determines the future still makes the error of reifying the future. To say the present determines the present is true but is not determinism.
Please clarify this point. Are you talking about special relativity, i.e. the "present" is only arbitrarily defined across different inertial frames? If so, you may have a point. But I'm not sure that's what you're saying.
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Consider a turbulent fluid flow such as earth's weather system...
Causality is properly understood as things that exist acting across time. What actions are possible are determined by the identities of the entities acting. If initial conditions include a complete accounting of the identities of the entities acting then the statement "physical systems are determined by their initial conditions" gains truth while surrendering predictability at the expense of requiring omniscience for any real insight. Usually initial conditions refer to an impoverished, censored version of conditions in the past, a half-remembered schematic of reality which is at least computable. Even that version makes a mistake in reifying the past over the present.
The formulaic expression of the axioms of existence and identity is "A is A" not "A was A".
Ok, I agree with everything you've said here, but all you've argued is that we will never be able to amass all the data required to figure out what exactly will happen to this very large and complex physical system at some later point in time. By your own argument, the system is still determined-- i.e. its (massively unknowable set of) conditions at any point in time still completely determines its state at any later point in time. Your own argument supports the determinist position.
I'm not even actually trying to advocate for the determinist position-- I'm trying to work out the paradox I illustrated at the outset of this discussion. Your last post sounded like you had examples of physical systems which were not completely determined by their conditions at a particular instant in time, but unless I misunderstand your argument here, you seem to be making precisely the opposite contention.
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That is simply false. A proposition is "possible" if there is some evidence for it. You've described "imaginable".
On the contrary, yours is simply false. There is never a reason to reject a proposition out of hand unless it would cause a contradiction (perhaps with existing evidence). Of course, we can't promote a proposition beyond the relatively weak stage of possibility without evidence.
This doesn't matter so much, though. I'm waiting for elucidation on Grimes's point.
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"He does not seem to understand what an axiom is, for instance, which is why he rejects those who do not attempt to "prove" the axioms, including the axiom of free will. He says that it is "bad philosophy" not to argue for "nontrivial" controversial issues, although you cannot and need not prove the axioms - regardless of how "nontrivial" and controversial you find them. All you can and need to do is to validate them, which is not the same as proving, and all you need to validate the axiom of volition is to observe it introspectively.
A proposition is "possible" if it can be true without contradiction. A priori, it is possible that choice is illusory and that we could not actually make any choices other than those we make-- that we experience the sensation of choice, not actual choice. There is no contradiction here, and your contention that "all you need to validate the axiom of volition is to observe it introspectively" does not show that lack of free will is impossible a priori, which undermines your assertion that free will is an axiom.
This does not rule out free will. It just means free will is not an axiom. Your repeated assertions that it is an axiom thus smack of bad philosophy.
I'm still most interested in Grames's examples of physical systems which have been shown to act independently of pre-existing physical conditions. If he can support that point, he'll undermine the paradox I brought up at the beginning of this discussion.
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There is no contradiction of physics involved in causation that works top-down in addition to bottom-up in some systems. Those special systems are physical manifestations of recursion, examples of which are living creatures, conceptual consciousness, and attractors in non-linear dynamic systems.
If you're saying some physical systems are not determined by their initial conditions, then I'm interested and I'd like to learn more. Please talk about (or link to) some examples which clearly illustrate your point.
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What does "draw the wrong conclusion" even mean? It refers to a choice as to the relationship between fact and a conceptual proposition about reality. A failure to choose a particular "correct" proposition as the one that describes reality is possible only if one can choose between propositions.
You've muddled the point by injecting the word "choice" where it doesn't belong. Accepting a false proposition constitutes fallibility. Choice is irrelevant in this respect, ergo fallibility does not imply free will.
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You obviously do not read very careful.
I made the exact same point, argued for it, showed how and why your argument amounts to nothing but is a fallacy of composition. But you just rejected what I said, without any argument or explanation, or even mentioning of this point.
Volition is self-evident via introspection. You can know that you possess volition, and that it is self-evident, just as you know that the grass is green, and that it is self-evident, by direct observation. This is all you need to know that volition is an axiom.
I also made this point in my post but you never commented it. You just ignored it.
An indication that volition is axiomatic is the fact that knowledge, truth and proof become stolen concepts if you deny it. I also made this point and, as usual, you ignored it.
You have been answered on every single point. Not only by me, but also by others. But you just keep ignoring what has been said and demand that we throw something else in your direction. But since you have been answered, I see no reason for this.
Your argument was trivially incorrect for the same reason I discussed above. However, in your case, the weakness in your argument was so explicit (via misunderstanding the determinist argument) that I opted to let you figure it out for yourself. But now that another post motivated me to explicitly describe the problem, I'm not sure why you think re-asserting the same invalid argument makes it any more useful. Please be more productive.
Moreover, volition simply is not self-evident via introspection, since there is no indication that we could actually have done anything but what we chose to do. For a more explicit treatment of this point, see the longish post by nanite1018.
It is a hallmark of bad philosophy to assert some point as "obvious" even when it has been demonstrated to be nontrivial. Productive comments still appreciated.
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The claim that we can only know if we have volition by going back in time or duplicating exact conditions is an appeal to non-reality, since time travel is impossible and we can never know the exact position and state of every sub-atomic particle within a given system. In other words, it would be like trying to assert that the only way we can know that the universe exists is to step outside of it and take a look. If your argument is relying on a metaphysical impossibility, then you have no argument.
As to the idea that we are all pre-determined by our thoughts and premises, this isn't true, because your choice to focus your mind and to consider your options is a primary choice; rationality does not happen automatically, like turning on a computer and running a program. You must choose to focus on the facts of reality in a rational, non-contradictory manner every step of the way.
Long, drawn out, deterministic based arguments fall flat in the face of the fundamental choice to focus one's mind or not to focus one's mind, which must be done by an act of will. In fact, in Objectivism, your choice to focus your mind on the facts and to consider them rationally is your free will.
You did not read carefully. My claim is that volition could only be self-evident as an axiom under those circumstances. It can still be demonstrable otherwise.
The rest of this is just re-asserting the same nontrivial claim. I'd still love for you actually to defend this position and not just assert it repeatedly.
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nanite1018:
Great points. I would contend that "choice" implies that a person could have done something other than what they did, but regardless, you're right that we have to keep definitions straight to have a meaningful discussion. I agree with most of what you say here; however, I still worry that the paradox inherent in concluding determinism undermines all knowledge, including supposed knowledge of determinism.
Obviously. Please connect this to the question at hand.In contrast, a fire, rock or bacterium are infallible -- they do what they do automatically, and cannot fail to do what they do. This is also true of animals, because their consciousnesses are automatic. Being fallible implies being capable of making the wrong choice, which implies being capable of making choice. It is obvious -- self-evident -- that you are fallible, and therefore that you are capable of making choices. Being capable of making choices is just another way of saying that you have volition, or free will.This does not follow at all. By "fallible" I mean "drew the wrong conclusion" about some facet of reality, which is primary.
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Oh, I see, you want me to conjure up the illusion that I changed your mind.
I am not a magician, so I don't deal in illusions.
I observe that I make choices, and I choose not to ignore that; you observe that you make choices, but you choose to ignore that. So, what can I possibly do that would get you to realize that you are posting here of your own free will?
You continue simply to assert this nontrivial conclusion. The only way free will could be axiomatically "self-evident" is if we could (and this is obviously impossible) play reality over again and witness people doing different things under the exact same initial conditions. Since we can't do that, free will is much more problematic, because we have no means of showing trivially that someone can do something other than they did.
A determinist would remark that you would not be conjuring up an illusion. You would be doing the only thing you could do, and so would I. "Illusion" is a euphemism for our mistaken perception that we have volition.
I encourage you to recognize the weaknesses of this philosophical premise and treat it more rigorously. All manner of philosophers attempt to mock those with whom they disagree, yet such an approach is ineffective without a complementary rigorous argument.
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fallacy of composition
You mean prove that every thought is reducible to specific environmental factors?? Can any type of lab experiment possibly prove that? If what you are supposing is in fact beyond the power of science, then there's no paradox.
IMO scientifically proving human determinism is just as impossible as scientifically proving human volition.
For what it's worth, I don't think Rand's statement - that a determinist ultimately believes his arguments for determinism aren't the result of careful independent thought, but rather the result of his environment - was her argument against determinism. That was only pointing out an interesting side thought, not her actual philosophical case against determinism.
Thank you for a relevant reply.
How is this the fallacy of composition? The argument is not that people behave the same way as atoms. The argument is that if everything in the mind is reducible to physical processes, and since we know all physical processes depend entirely on the initial conditions of a physical system, then the mind also must be such a physical system, so it must be determined by its initial conditions just like any physical system. If this is still fallacious, please explain how.
For the second part-- you're right, I'm making the supposition that science will eventually be good enough to show this. If science can't ever do that, the conclusions which follow are false. But the trend seems to be that each decade, science explains things where until recently were considered well out of humanity's reach. Consequently, this assumption may not be so far out.
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Well, then not having any control over your prior conditions, there isn't anything you can do to change your mind or that we can do to change your mind. It was all set billions of years ago that you would be logging onto oo.net and to post your messages -- which, of course, means that we can ignore them like so much static on our TV sets. It's just a fact of nature, not changeable by anything we choose to do.
Thanks for letting us know that.
This is an observably false inference since people "change their minds" all the time. A determinist would remark that you could still convince me, even though the sequence of events which led to my being convinced and the illusion of choice I experience while changing my mind were determined.
The epistemology to which you (allegedly) subscribe dictates that higher-order knowledge may only be gained through reason. Is it really so much for me to ask that you defend your contention? I'm not sure how confident I would be in my own philosophical premises if I elected not to defend them when challenged, but it's naturally your decision (speaking in non-deterministic language).
I'm not just calling on Mr. Miovas. I encourage anyone here to consider what seems a rather legitimate challenge to both free will and determinism.
Do you believe that you are fallible?Obviously. Please connect this to the question at hand.
"A=a" proves the existence of God
in Debates
Posted
Vigilantys:
Grames already pointed out your logical errors, but going further, I think the major issue is your assumption (!) that cause and effect applies at the singularity (the first instant of the Big Bang) the same way it applies later in the universe. Cause and effect imply a linear concept of time (special relativity complicates this but doesn't undermine it), but since there was no time before the first instant, causality runs into trouble there.
Of course, the "first cause" argument probably has been refuted more thoroughly than I just did.