One cannot be tricked into believing something if they know both how they're being tricked, and that they're being tricked.

One who is performing the trickery knows both how and that they're doing it.

One cannot know how and that one is tricking him/herself and not know how and that one is tricking oneself(how and that it's being done).

The same applies to deliberately misrepresenting one's own thought and belief to oneself. It's just plain common sense. It's not at all difficult to grasp. — creativesoul

If you know that they are in conflict, then you cannot believe that they are not. — creativesoul

The mind is divided. However, it is still one mind. It is divided in terms of having/holding conflicting beliefs. Your example is one of cognitive dissonance being ignored. Very common practice hereabouts and everywhere I've ever been. — creativesoul

So if we can have or hold conflicting beliefs -- ignore cognitive dissonance, as you put it -- then we can both know that two beliefs are in conflict, and believe they are not in conflict. Because both of those beliefs, too, are in conflict, yet we can hold conflicting beliefs, so.... what's the problem?

It goes against common sense. But here it seems you're admitting that common sense is wrong?

Removing truth from the notion of thought and belief? Cannot be done. — creativesoul

I feel that's irritating.

"I feel that's irritating" is true. But is the feeling of irritation true? No. But it is a part of the mind. So if the entire mind is belief, then surely there are non-cognitive beliefs.

@numberjohnny5

so are you really asking how to lie to yourself and believe it? — Uniquorn

Bingo. Well, not exactly how I, personally, might do so -- I'm not after a step-by-step guide to lying to myself. But rather what would necessarily be true if it were possible to lie to yourself. So I'm not really assuming that it is possible to lie to yourself, even. I'm more interested in a conceptual analysis of lying to yourself -- exploring what is necessary under the assumption that it is true.

The benefit being that by so doing it might lead to a way of determining whether it is or is not true, but without simply assuming one way or the other.

There certainly are more differences between bats and humans than there are between boys and girls, but they're still different. The differences are physical as well as social. There certainly is a "girl role" that is "imposed" on girls, but that role is part of their identity. A boy who'd like to live in that role will not have had the same experiences as the girl. — Relativist

Eh, I'm pretty much limiting myself to the more general question rather than digging into the specifics of gender theory, here. How this might work at with regards to specifics would be up to those people who identify as such and such, according to my theory. Not being transgender I'm fairly hesitant to begin generalizing in that area.

Sorry for the time delay on not tending the thread. I'm glad to see the discussion continue, though. There was the weekend, and family, and other things besides philosophy. But I'm back now.

Without introducing meaning, truth, and belief into the mix whatever theory of mind discussed will be utterly incomplete, wouldn't you agree? — creativesoul

Belief, sure. I'm not so certain about meaning or truth, though.

What is the difference between being mistaken and self-deception? — creativesoul

I'm still waiting on a criterion which when met by a candidate counts as self-deception. — creativesoul

I don't even know what "ruling it our a priori" is supposed to mean. If it is impossible for one to deliberately misrepresent their own thought and belief to oneself, then any and all arguments which assume or validly conclude that are themselves based upon at least one false premiss. — creativesoul

I'd say that "ruling it out a priori" means that you are ruling out the possibility that our minds are divided by means of some conceptual analysis of the concept of lying, or by declaring it to be impossible. Maybe you're not, but I'm not sure why it is impossible to deliberately misrepresent one's own belief to oneself.

I am fine with your notion of lying. So lying, rather than merely being mistaken, is when you deliberately misrepresent your own belief to yourself. Merely being mistaken is holding a false belief. Since falsity isn't in the notion of lying the two don't even have to relate. We may deliberately misrepresent some true or false belief to ourselves, just depending upon what we believe. By removing truth, in fact, there is a lot more wiggle room here -- the beliefs need not even have a factual component (EDIT: Or even be truth-apt). They merely need to be misrepresented to ourselves.

And such a thing would be possible -- conceptually speaking, here -- if the mind were in some sense divided. So let's just stick with @unenlightened's notion of commitment. I am committed to some belief. I come to believe something that is in conflict with this other belief. Here I can be honest with myself, realize that these two beliefs are not compatible, and try and think through that conflict and resolve it in some way. Or I can be dishonest with myself, act out of fear, and tell myself that the beliefs are not in conflict. However I might accomplish this -- it seems that this dishonesty is really what lying to yourself is all about. You aren't coming to terms with a conflict in beliefs, but rather accepting both beliefs in spite of having the niggling realization that they are in conflict. So you misrepresent your beliefs -- or meta-beliefs? -- by saying they can get along fine. Your commitment and your new belief that said commitment is somehow erroneous (not necessarily false) and your belief that they are not in conflict are all somehow simultaneously preserved. It seems a mental feat which would result in conflict of the self, and indeed I'd say that this is the case -- which really only makes sense if different parts of the self can actually be in conflict, which is easily understood if the mind is divided.

I would say the reason I don't know what it is like to be a bat is because I am not a bat. I know bats use echolocation, and I can imagine what that might be like. But I don't know what it is like simply by the fact that I am not that.

I know what it is like to be poor because I have been poor. I am not currently poor, and I know that because I know the exact pressures and feelings of poorness, having been so myself at one point.

I'd basically just leave talk of hard-wiring out of it.

I do not know what it is like to be a bat. But I do know what it is like to be myself. I do not know what it is like to be you or he or she or them. But we may know what it is like to be poor.

What's the problem?

Gotcha.

Then my answer is yes -- one can know what it is like to be such and such. How do I claim this? Well, people make these sorts of claims frequently. They are believable to me because I have such feelings too. The claims are about their own experiences, but also highlight similarities in experience. And even though such descriptions change between time, place, and person they also have similarities that allow people who feel like such and such to bond over such identifiers, and even theorize about their identities.

Now, that doesn't exactly answer how it is possible to be able to do such. It only justifies that one can do so. I'd also point out that even though it can be done that this isn't exhaustive of identity. In some ways the theories, the descriptors, the names are products of what is more basic -- individual experience. So you can disagree over the meaning of a name, the descriptor, the theory to explain what it is you're feeling based upon individual experience, even if it doesn't quite match the general trend.

Gender identity in transgender folk is described as a conflict between one's internal sense of being male or female, and one's physical characteristics — Banno

It is. But not always.

I'm not sure exactly the aspect of identity you're interested in. Is your focus on sex and gender, or is it on interiority -- feeling like such and such -- and exteriority?

Hrm! I missed that thread. It was a good read.

I think it's worth noting evil for what it is. In this case, war. I agree that this is a view somewhat distended from immediate decision making or even decisions we'll make. (After all, as I said earlier, war isn't even really a decision for the majority of us) -- but it's also something of a no-brainer. The evils of war are great, and so acknowledging this influences our attitude towards war, which in turn does influence how we react to war -- something which we do have control over.

I'd also say that the decision to defend your city from an invasion is a no-brainer, though. I think cases of revolution are justifiable to participate in. I'm not fully against all war, in the sense that it can be the right choice to be a part of a war, in my view. But it is also a sort of participation in evil, and that tone changes how we make that decision I'd say.

For most of us it is something beyond our control. How we react to war is something else. But it's not something we really have a choice in, and so isn't much of a moral deliberation.

Still, it's worth noting that war is an evil, so I don't know if I'd say it's moot. People certainly talk about war like it's a good often enough that it's worth saying that there isn't such a thing as a good war, even if we happen to need to go to war.

Is it? If it is necessary to have a split mind in order for it to be possible for one to lie to oneself, then it seems pretty relevant to me. At least it's a logical next step, under the assumption that this is the only way to parse that phrase into something which is actually lying to oneself, as opposed to it just being a turn of phrase that, in a strict sense, means something else.

Another thought on "splitting" --

Something that @VagabondSpectre's approach does make me think of, explicitly at least, is that there could also be a difference between a self and a mind. So the self has a seemingly singular quality to it -- we always feel like we're the same person and can entertain, at least in a clear and distinct way as philosophers tend to like to do, about one thought at a time. But the mind can be much wider than the self, and it may not just be the self that lies but the mind.

I think what you describe is plausible. I don't think I'd call it lying in the strict sense.

But what makes this plausible description something which actually annuls the act of lying to oneself?

By "splitting of selves" I just mean it generically -- like, I can see multiple ways you or others might parse what that means. Partitioning, or having a tripartite division of mind such as Plato's or Freud's, or as I've been saying just having an awareness which can move from different parts of the mind, or as un has been saying between the image, the self, and the speaker of the sentence making the division. I'm sure there are other ways it could be parsed.

In some sense there is a factual aspect that would need to be investigated ,and it could even be case-by-case. But investigating the facts of a mind is something of a tricky business, and deserving of some philosophical scrutiny to understand how a fact might be significant one way or another. And in a sense I think it's worthy to note that it may not be just the facts -- as un points out, there could also be commitments of one kind or another in making an identity, which are over and above the facts.


And then even more generally speaking -- what would make this singular self picture a better picture than a split self picture? It must be more than the facts because we could probably reconcile facts either way.

I think I can agree that war is basically an evil. I don't know if I'd say immoral, because morality tends to refer to either acts or character and war is neither of those. What it is depends upon one's position in a society. For some it is almost like a natural disaster -- a regrettable context that causes suffering but which we have no control over. For others they have a direct say in whether or not to pursue war, and it is closer to moral deliberation in that context. But even then it is somewhat out of one's control, because it's not something a person does all on their own.

And even though war is basically evil, there can be greater evils than fighting a war. I don't believe that there is such a thing as a just war. It is evil. But sometimes a choice between evils is all you get.

p4 One cannot do both, know s/he is tricking him/herself, and not know that s/he is being tricked. — creativesoul

Why not?

The reason I say that lying being based on knowledge or belief is a minor disagreement is because I'm willing to go along with your theory of lying. I'm not so interested in justification, meaning, truth, or belief as much as I am in a theory of mind. So sure, it's a disagreement, but I'm fine with setting the stage as you say -- that lying is the intentional misrepresentation of one's own belief. That fits well enough for me.

It seems to me that if we are of a split mind that we could still accomplish this -- adding a dimension of time and some notion of awareness would resolve any sort of conflict. And if this could be demonstrated to be non-pathological, it would even be a possible normal event ("possible" just because that seems more empirical question that I do not have an answer to)

EDIT: (Relates to the above)

If it takes talking about one person as though they were a plurality of different selves in order to make sense of lying to oneself, it seems to me that it makes better sense to abandon the notion altogether and learn to talk about the same situations in better ways. — creativesoul

I don't see what makes a singular self better than a divided self. For that matter I'm not sure what would make a divided self better than a singular self, at this point.

One wouldn't need to be a literal two selves within a single mind. I think merely having a divided mind -- of whatever kind -- is enough to count as lying as you define lying. Some part of the mind can deliberately misrepresent a belief to another part of the mind, and our awareness can shift from the one to the other through time.

But what would make either notion a better notion?

Self-deception - which I presume is the focus of this thread - — jkg20

Yup! :D

is perhaps best not modelled on the binary relation of A deceiving B (even where A and B are the same person). After all, I could deceive myself without engaging in self-deception - an example, suppose I am in the army on a shooting range, and I am charged with camoflaging targets. I do the job so well that even I cannot tell the targets from the bushes. I've deceived myself, but it's not a case of self-deception. Someone earlier in this thread mentioned the idea that self-deception (lying to oneself) is more akin to giving yourself bad reasons for not pushing yourself to the end of a chain of reasoning that will definitively reach a conclusion you do not like.

So it's something, in your view, that happens along a chain of reasoning. So you might have the notion that this is going somewhere bad, and then come up with some reasons that you don't scrutinize too deeply to make it go somewhere good.

That seems right to me and doesn't involve too much metaphysical nonsense about split selves etc.

What's nonsensical about a split self? Is it any more nonsensical than a singular self?

That's a pretty good example of what lying to oneself would be like in action.

Knowing that 'X' is false makes it impossible to believe 'X'. I believe 'X' about myself. I cannot do both, know that 'X' is false(about myself) and believe that 'X' is true(about myself).

As soon as we become aware that 'X' is false, we cannot possibly believe otherwise. That holds good in cases where 'X' is true, but we believe 'X' is false. If we believe 'X', then we believe 'X' is true; is the case; corresponds to fact/reality; is the way things are; etc. We cannot do both, believe 'X' and know that 'X' is not true; is not the case; does not correspond to fact/reality; is not the way things are; etc. — creativesoul

I'd say that given a dimension of time that this could be overcome. So right now if I believe "X", then I know "~X", I could then choose to believe "X" and forget or ignore "~X"

With a dimension of time we also have changes of awareness. So at different moments we can come to be aware of different things.

Well, strictly speaking 'one' who has two minds is two... not one. We cannot be of two minds, strictly speaking... aside from having some sort of multiple personality disorder. These are common is cases of tremendous childhood trama. It's a coping mechanism. Since the facts are too much for the one individual to bear, the one 'creates' an alternative persona as a means to 'split up' the burdens...

I see nothing wrong with saying that people of one mind can hold contradictory beliefs. I would wager that everyone does, at least during some period of their life. Some become aware of this and choose. Others become aware and suspend judgment. Others become aware and struggle to grasp what's going on, and thus chalk it up to being normal, or some other ad hoc explanation. Others never become aware.

There is some tremendous difficulty involved in becoming aware of one's own false belief, assuming one wants to correct the situation.

It is also quite common to be uncertain about something or other. These latest situations I've mentioned are often spoken of in terms of "being of two minds", and that makes perfect sense in everyday parlance. — creativesoul

I think we're basically in agreement on lying. At least I'm most interested in this more robust theory of lying, as opposed to delusion, just because it's the more difficult case -- and you seem to agree that delusion is possible, just not lying

So your main point of disagreement is really that being of two minds is not normal -- it would have to be a pathology of some kind at play in order for someone to lie to themselves.

I think you mean to say that lying is -- to tell someone a falsehood while knowing it is false. — creativesoul

I had in mind saying "I do not have the money" when "I have the money" is true -- but yeah, I was flipping the signs in my head. The former would be a falsehood, the later a truth, and you'd be saying the falsehood and not the truth.

Lying has less to do with truth, and more to do with thought and belief. That is, lies themselves consist of statements that can be either true or false, but the lie is always told by someone deliberately misrepresenting what they think and/or believe. — creativesoul

I think this is a minor disagreement between us. I see what you mean, but I'd say that you'd have to know something to be true and then say its opposite, whereas you'd say that it comes down to belief -- so you believe "X" is true, but you say "~X".

Good enough for me. I think the split-mind disagreement is the stronger of the two. Yeah?

Bearing in mind that you're asking me, unenlightened (surely a foolish move?), I think it is a matter of identification. — unenlightened

Heh. Well, I'm not exactly the wisest so I don't mind. :D

I suppose I'm trying to understand the notion of a split mind -- so I'm looking for something to contrast it with to make sense of it.

So, for example, there are facts about where I was born and what kind of passport I have, and then there is the identity of 'Englishman'. Or there are facts about what I have read and studied and thought over, and then there is the identity of 'philosopher'.

Identity is somehow more than the facts; it is a commitment to the facts; an investment in the significance of the facts. And this creates a separation, of a central self in the mind - I am an English philosopher. Something to protect against, well everything, including whatever else might be the facts of what I am. — unenlightened

So a whole mind would be one without an identity, without a commitment to certain facts. It would accept all the facts about itself as relevant to itself, or would be committed to no facts about itself at all. A person with a whole mind would not have an identity to protect or project.

Some more things about lying:

In order for a lie to be successful, and not just count as a lie, it seems to me we have to rely upon some guesses as to how the person we are lying to will take the information. We have to imagine what it would be like to be them. So we have to have some sort of beliefs (model? Possibly if we make an art of lying) about the other person's mind, how they react to different sorts of information, presentation, and their general mood. That way we can craft something that sounds believable to the person we're talking to, even though we know it to be false.

Lying, as simple as it seems and as young as we learn how to do it, is actually a really complicated behavior.

Sure we don't feel like an amalgam of streaming information exchanges among and between learning neural networks, but there's too much evidence to ignore that it is so. — VagabondSpectre

What evidence persuades you that you are a neural network?


****

I sort of feel like the computational approach has to abandon "belief" -- there is no belief formation, there are algorithms which optimize. There is nothing that a belief is about, there are models of math problems through logical switches. And the stream of electrons move in accord with physical facts.

Similarly, a few levels up, we have algorithms optimizing and modifying themselves in light of some goal set for them. But do the algorithms lie to one another? Do they avoid dissonance? Or are they simply following instructions and giving us a good model for understanding (some of our) learning? It seems the latter to me.

We often choose to believe things despite an absence of rational support. Is that only a lie if for virtuous purposes? Is it never a lie?

What is a lie? I tend to consider it the deliberate telling of a known falsehood. — Relativist

I think we're in agreement here. We tell someone a falsehood we know to be true. Maybe there's a motivational component to this but that seems to be the bare minimum of what a lie is.

I don't think I'd say that believing such and such without rational justification counts as a lie. It may be irrational, but without justification we do not know, and if we do not know then we couldn't be telling ourselves a known falsehood.

Part of the difficulty in determining a lie is in being able to tell if someone really knew something or if they were just mistaken, delusional, or something along those lines. Usually we mean that the person lying both knows the truth and tells the opposite. With two people this is easy enough to understand -- one person knows, the other does not, and the person who knows believes that the falsehood is better to say than the truth (for whatever reason -- could be white lies, or nefarious. Could be to preserve feelings, or manipulative to get what one wants)

But with one person it seems strange to say. But it is a common turn of phrase to claim someone is lying to themselves. Hence the line of questioning -- perhaps it is just a turn of phrase, but what would it take for someone to lie to themself, to where it was more than just a turn of phrase?

Since lying is deliberately misrepresenting one's own thought and belief, and it is always done in situations when the speaker believes that they ought not allow others to know what they think and believe, it seems to me that one cannot lie to oneself — creativesoul

What if we are of two thoughts?

I believe something good about myself. I know that it is false. These are in conflict with one another. So let's say we become aware of different beliefs at different times. I tell myself the good thing and I want to believe it, so I do. There's the part of me who lies, and the part of me who listens. And I stop being aware of the part of me who lies right after telling myself the lie. I know that I have to deceive to achieve the desired belief.

If we are of one mind then I don't think we could lie to ourselves. I agree with that -- that's why I thought @unenlightened made a good point in saying we'd have to have a divided mind in order for us to lie successfully, and not just be delusional or some such.

That is, when one holds that lies are always false. — creativesoul

At least in a general sense I'd say that's what lying is -- to tell someone a falsehood while knowing it is true in order to deceive them. So I'd say that in the case of telling someone about my own thoughts then I'd be lying if I told them something I do not really think -- that this is a particular case of lying, but that lying doesn't have to be about my own thoughts. It could also be about whether I have the money for the bill.

We may also be engaged in deceiving other people. Effective deception requires the appearance of conviction, and in projecting conviction we may, as the saying goes, come to believe our own bullshit. (5) Successful con artists know they are deceiving others and manage their act. Most of us aren't that good at it. We believe it ourselves. — Bitter Crank

We want the lie to be so successful that we begin to believe it ourselves? :D Sounds like a good premise for a play.

I'm noticing that your examples seem to be of delusions of one sort or another. There is something inconvenient so we ignore it and come up with alternate beliefs to shield our awareness -- give it something else to fixate on -- and in a way are thus deluded. But is that lying, exactly?

Other people do not always wish us well and say unkind things about us--some of which may be true, or may be false. True or false, we defend ourselves by denying what they say. (Believing all the negative things one hears about one's self might be quite self-destructive.) Rejecting negative feedback becomes a protective habit. (6) — Bitter Crank

I'd say this is just a way of coming to a false belief about ourselves through habits. What's going on is we hear something negative from a source we don't trust, so we just sort of tune it out on the basis that we've had negative things said about ourselves many times before and they weren't exactly true as much as expressions of how the other person felt.

Most of the time we are darkly ignorant of our real intentions. All we mostly want is pleasure.
None us all really want the other guy to win. Not if he isn't on our side !
But we will string a narrative to convince that we are the good guys and those are the bad guys.
Isn't that a lie — Bayaz

I guess that depends on whether or not we really are the good guys or the bad guys. :D Though that sort of evaluation isn't exactly amenable to basic fact checking, since goodness and badness are not facts but judgments of value that we make or hold. So naturally we'd think we are the good guys, since these are relative to what we already hold to be good. But it is a bit circular.

You bring up real intentions, though. So there are real intentions and there are unreal ones (false ones?). And there is a kind of veil between what we believe our intentions to be and what the real ones are.

Though if that's the case then it seems we can still know that our intentions aren't what we'd like to believe they are. We know we mostly want pleasure. But somehow we believe we are good (or I am good?) -- but the knowledge goes to the wayside, like an abstract proposition.

What is this division between belief and actual intent? How do we know we mostly want pleasure, yet still believe we are good, and intend to do good? Or is this a sort of unveiling of a way of lying?

This is really complicated. :D

Do you feel like an amalgamation of computations? I don't really. If it is true it's all "under the hood", so to speak.

A lie would be really hard to model just using computational models, I think -- even moreso to lie to oneself. Or maybe not, maybe it's much the same thing -- just a mind divided.

But how would you computationally model a lie to another neural network?

Seems complicated and difficult.

If, for instance, we desire to be somehow virtuous (intelligent, moral, successful, likeable etc...) then we may ask ourselves whether or not it is already the case that we have such virtue. If the desire is strong enough (and the feeling failure entails too harsh) then perhaps we bias ourselves in the course of consciously discriminating between groups of predictive models/understandings and arbitrarily ignore models which do not reinforce our higher level preconceptions. In other words, when we assume that something is true we may fundamentally alter our predictive models to conform to that assumption. We may invent excuses that amount to predictive models which do not conform to reality, or we may ignore and negate predictive models which DO conform to reality. — VagabondSpectre

I think desire plays a role, for sure. But it has to be a certain kind of desire. To use the virtue example above, if we really wanted to be virtuous then that desire would be more powerful than momentary shame at seeing who we are right now -- and we could begin working on ourselves, performing a kind of technological operation on our soul to begin changing to a certain degree.

But what is the structure of desire that makes one lie to oneself, as opposed to really desiring to be such and such?

Do you think that we can deceive ourselves, as opposed to lying?

Let's say that we are not one. If we are divided then it would seem that we could lie to our self -- from one self to another self. Not in some pathological or diagnostic sense, but rather this is something that the mind can and does often do -- it is "normal". Would it be possible, at that point, to lie to yourself?


I am interested in the possibility that this is impossible -- that "lying to yourself" is a turn of phrase. But I'm interested in what would be required, at a conceptual level, for it to mean just more than a turn of phrase -- whether or not we do so in fact. Mostly because it would provide a means for determining whether or not we can or do lie to ourselves.

. Interesting, and good stuff.

What is it about Jesus and the Buddha that makes them have undivided minds? Do they simply believe, rather than say they have a belief? How does that work, in the sage-like mind? (ideally speaking -- the facts are gone to history)

In a word, 'paranoia'. Literally, a mind beside itself. In order to 'succeed', a lie requires a liar who knows the truth, and a patsy who is deceived; so a divided mind is prerequisite. — unenlightened

Definitely. I'm curious about this, first at a conceptual level and also as a phenomena. I think that if we could demonstrate somehow that we were successful at doing this it shows something about the mind that's important.

Is it enough to say that having two mutually exclusive beliefs at once is enough to count as a divided mind?

Well, by "successful" I only mean that we lie to ourselves, and we also believe it even though it is false. So the goal of lying is successful -- what comes from that is set aside.

And also -- to lie usually requires some kind of intent to deceive. So I mean this, rather than just mere confusion or delusion or something like that.

It seems to me that studying logic is something of an empirical matter that can then be formalized. Logic is that set of inferences which are truth-preservative -- so, assuming that our [elements] -- be they sentences, propositions, beliefs, frames, predicates, etc. -- are true, we will know that the conclusion from these elements is also true. It's something of an empirical matter in that we can study arguments, and formalize them. Usually the way to show that something is a fallacy is to come up with an example of an argument that uses the same form, but draws an obviously false conclusion -- hence, with that example in hand, we know that the form of argument is not truth-preservative, since we were able to derive obviously false conclusions using it.

EDIT: One consequence of looking at logic like this is that we have to know something already before we can investigate logic. So it is not a foundation of knowledge, exactly, but something which comes after already knowing -- a generalization of knowledge we know now. Consequently it may be shown, with the more that we know, that some inferential step we once took as valid is shown to be invalid. Logic is something that lives and breathes and changes.

By "mental states" do you mean human mental states, or are you aiming for something more general?

I was thinking on your response, and life requires variety -- I was doing other things. So sorry for the delay.



So you're proposing something of an ethic -- two approaches towards argument depending upon the consequences of said decision. There's a lot after that which I spent some time writing out and subsequently deleting to attempt focusing more in my response.

To attempt a rephrase: your ethic is considering another wrong is only important (meaningful?) in instances where our shared world of experience is effected by whatever it is we are arguing over.


Were I a practicing Christian then it would seem that a broadly Buddhist conception of the world is pretty important to me in the sense that it is wrong and Christianity is right, where bridges can be built by a multiplicity of concepts (consider how long bridges have been around in relation to the theory of gravity). Whether bridges stand or fall is important to the extent that we desire a bridge -- but the theory we use to get there doesn't matter insofar that the end-goal is achieved. The salvation of another's soul is of utmost importance. So hierarchy is justified on the basis of this greater good. (FWIW, I do not subscribe to Christian beliefs, so I do not feel this way towards Christianity at all -- but it's a common enough stance to take that this should make sense)

That is merely factual. Perhaps it is factual and the Christian is wrong in the ethical sense to consider their worldview as something which must be aggressively defended and propogated, but should be presented in a passive one-way manner without investment to people who follow along some other tree-line.

For myself I have a hard time believing in hierarchy at all -- but I don't think that dispassionate discussion amounts to much either. So I don't know which of the two options I should pick. Something should be at stake in a debate whether that "at stake" is relative to our shared world of experience or not -- that doesn't seem so important to me as a rule for how we ought to approach debates. Further I'd say that decidability doesn't seem to relate to this "at stake", though maybe decidability is something we can put to the wayside now as it seems like something of an after effect in your proposed ethic -- you're concerned with the shared world of experience, and not whether some debate is decidable or not.

To you an aggressive, two way exchange where we consider another person wrong and utilize hierarchy to maintain agreement is justified in the case where our shared world of experience is going to be the same. If our shared world of experience is the same regardless of which branch we happen to believe in making a distinction then it is better to have a one-way, passive approach to a debate. Only in this way can a debate between two positions be meaningful -- meaningfulness is dependent upon approach, which is appropriate or not depending upon whether or not what we are talking about makes a difference in our shared world of experience.

To me I'm uncertain that the aggressive two-way exchange is justified, nor is the one-way justified. Surely we care about what we talk about. I care about philosophy, so Italk about it. But am I demanding of you agreement with me? I'm presenting reasons to you to explain myself, and persuasion is a part of that. But I've also edited a great deal and cut out a great deal upon re-reading it and reflecting -- so a part of this debate is also self reflecting, it is asking questions about myself. It's not purely an act of certainty from myself to make you conform with myself. It's an exploration, a play -- a play I am not disinterested in at all. A play which has stakes (though are the stakes of our shared world of experience? Maybe, maybe not).

Is that a third way? Or is that passive, merely because it is not authoritarian? If that be the case, then I don't know if I'd consider bridges to be the basis for authoritarianism either. If we care about a bridge standing then we can build the bridge and see if it stands -- but the ideas we use to get there, like gravity, aren't part of that end-goal so much. They are just as undecidible as other things, because they are interpretations, and not the shared world of experience. In fact "shared world" is itself just a metaphysical belief (one which I happen to share a belief in).

If the bridge stands then we're done. But to get there play is more important than hierarchy, experiment is what allows for discovery. Maybe there will be better bridges in the future for such play. In which case even the undecidable, that which is beyond our immediate world of experience, should be debated about -- because that's how we got gravity, after all. Newton didn't just say "well I don't see it, so I should propose this in a dispassionate manner for consideration" -- he thought he was right.

This, as I understand, is an internal position; mental states are independent of what is going on around us. Not sure if this is like being a priori or like being phenomenal. Either way, we have to avoid it being seen as inexpressible, and hence beyond discussion. — Banno

Well, mental states are semi-independent, I might prefer to say. They are queer in that they aren't totally independent of what's happening around us, and they aren't fully determined either. And perhaps that sliding scale changes from person to person, too -- we can develop a certain amount of independence from our circumstances, but not everyone can do this as much as others, and we are surely never fully independent of our environment in our mental states.

I don't think I'd say that mental states are inexpressible. But there is something worth noting in being tempted to say they are. There is something that seems missing, a lot of the time, in attempting to express our mental states (or whatever they are). Our attempts often fall short, for whatever reason. And there is value in extra-propositional knowledge when it comes to mental states -- we value people who have experienced a certain kind of pain in speaking about said pain over someone who might have read a lot of books about pain.

But I wouldn't say that it's entirely beyond discussion. We do talk about what seems to count as mental states very frequently. It's just very particular to the moment, and so caution is advisable in making generalizations.

Can one know the mental state of another? — Banno

I'd say yes. But I would say that such knowledge is heavily dependent upon listening -- to a point that certainty is always relative to what someone tells us about themselves, rather than relative to our prior experiences with people who seem like such and such. The particularity of mental states makes it so that generalizations are too inaccurate to take as guiding theories of persons, I think.

I agree with you that metaphysical debates could be decidable in the sense that like-minded people within a certain language game could come to agree with one another, once they had ironed out their differences,confusions, or mutual misunderstandings. I think that is a more relative kind of decidability than the decidability of empirical propositions and theories, though. — Janus

I guess where we differ then is on this notion of empirical propositions. Or maybe possibly differ.

We are communicating in English. I am typing on a computer. My calendar hangs upon the wall.

God exists. I am praying to him. The holy ghost watches over us.

I write these as a kind of parallel. Communicating in English isn't exactly empirical, but it is certain. God is similar, for a particular community. Praying is something we do, as is typing. Not hard to decide. You can see the calendar, and the believer can feel the holy ghost. Quite decidable for a community.

Empirical propositions are decidable. But so are the metaphysical ones. And empirical propositions require concepts to understand, prior beliefs to make sense of, and a web of beliefs to decide the judgements of truth or falsity. Just like metaphysical propositions -- and insofar that we are in agreement with certain beliefs, then they are just as decidable and certain as empirical propositions.

But it is worth noting that there is no ultimate decidability in any domain of inquiry.

Sure. I don't think I'd argue for ultimate decidability. Though there is a kind of regulative belief at play, I'd think, in arguing over what is true -- like, we seem to believe that there is some ultimate answer in arguing over what is better when we believe very differently, even though we would say, upon reflection, that it doesn't seem that there is an ultimate answer.

Mathematics probably comes closest to complete decidability and metaphysics remains the most distant, with ethics and aesthetics and the human and natural sciences located at various imprecise points along the continuum.

I'd just say this is relative to the person or community in question. Consider the Pythagoreans, who believed that all numbers could be expressed in ratios of whole numbers. It was something of an a priori belief, completely decidable -- even though wrong (maybe false?) by our current understanding of mathematics. I'd say that what you propose is something which is relative to a particular background of beliefs -- that decidability is relative to our beliefs, or community, rather than it being a feature of the subject matter.

One I often find myself repeating:

"It is what it is"

That was long. Just noting here real quick I think we also probably are closer than what may have seemed to be the case at first. I am generally skeptical of metaphysical justification, and usually don't think that it leads to knowledge (though being simultaneously unescapable). I'm sort of trying to challenge my own beliefs here, too, in looking at what might be exceptions to that general feeling.

Naw, I don't know Ramsay, so no worries there.

I think there's a difference between "They can both be right" and "They are both right" -- so when I say that it is wrong to say that consciousness is awareness, I'm talking about in the context of the hard problem of consciousness. And by wrong I don't mean false, only that if one were to mean what "awareness" means then they'd be talking about something else. I'd call this phenomena talking past one another, sometimes just because of the locutions involved are the same but also sometimes because there are some unstated beliefs that haven't be explicated yet causing confusion.

This would hold true further down the tree you describe. So supervenience is easily explained in a single sentence, but takes a long time to develop exactly what that sentence means (just like consciousness) because it is complicated. So we can make a distinction between weak and strong supervenience, and clarify what each means then ask, "What are you committed to?" -- this is just laying the groundwork for understanding someone.

Now I would agree that you can't criticize another branch of the tree merely be asserting your own branch of the tree. That would be thoroughly uninteresting, and amount to about the same thing as saying "P" "~P". But I would say that there's more to critique than simply taking a route down a tree of possible decisions -- and that we can be right or wrong in using a word in such and such a way only because of the context of the conversation, but that this does not mean the same thing as being true or false. We're just hammering down terms to begin to understand each other.

I can completely sympathise with your finding some value in 'testing' your beliefs against those of others, you might find another position more satisfying, or more robust, and we do seem to like our beliefs to be robust (well, some of us anyway) but that's a one way passive event. The philosopher only needs to 'present' you with their proposition, for you to do with what you will. But then there's no sfnsd in which you're "studying" anything, there's no body of knowledge to learn (other than the entirely historical facts of who said what). No one is 'better' than anyone else, there's no sense in which some grammatically correct interpretation could be 'wrong' (again, other than in a purely historical sense that such an interpretation is unlikely to be what the author intended to say. Because what the author intended to say is a fact of history, not metaphysics). — Pseudonym

Here again I don't think we can see eye to eye. :D Though I'll try and state why. (After all, it's disagreement that I think is valuable, at least at times)

What is a one way passive event? What is a two-way active event that makes it more valuable?

Is philosophy really just a collection of propositions? It seems to me that philosophy is bound up with reasoning and reflection, and not mere assertion. There are also traditions within which philosophy takes place. So, for instance, physics is a body of knowledge, and physics is just another tradition of metaphysics. It was born out of wholly metaphysical speculations about the nature of the cosmos. I would caution, here, to say that metaphysics is not a wholly a priori discipline -- like all of philosophy it's more like by hook and by crook (to steal something from Searle). There is an art to it, and sometimes you use examples, sometimes you use empirical methods, sometimes you use thought experiments, and sometimes you use arguments.



Science is a lot like this. The only difference is that science is institutionalized to be a certain way, whereas philosophy is broader and able to change traditional assumptions -- to make new traditions, if it happens to bear fruit.

And if metaphysics is the study of what exists, then it seems to me that science is either metaphysics in that sense, or just something which doesn't deal in existence, contrary to what it appears to do. While I'm not a scientific realist, in the sense that I think science spells out all of that which exists, or all knowledge, I do think that it deals in existence -- it makes claims about what exists and why such and such exists by using reasons, broadly construed. The only reason it's more decidable than all of philosophy is because it is a tradition, which holds certain things as true, wherein many people believe such and such and so are able to appeal to that bed of agreement to decide upon what is being disagreed with.

It is philosophy, and it is metaphysics.

So I'm uncertain I'd say there is no knowledge in philosophy, either, beyond historical facts. Maybe so. I just wouldn't state it so strongly as that. (Because surely there is a kind of difference between philosophy and science, I just don't find it to be all that strong -- the difference is just in what is being held T, what is the space of reasoning that's allowable, the traditions that are important to thinking)

As I say, I have a lot of sympathy for the value in the more mystical metaphysical propositions. I think I would even go as far as to say it would be virtually impossible for a person to go through life without taking a position on some of the most important metaphysical questions,and I'd love to be involved in discussing them as such, but that, sadly, is just not how it's done. — Pseudonym

Often times I think you're right. But I'd still insist that within the context of a tradition that a metaphysical belief can be decidable based upon what is being held T -- such as the belief that the universe is coherent, or the belief that we live in the best possible world, or something. Also, I think I'd maintain the distinction between wrong/false, or the distinction between avoiding talking past one another, and making an argument for something being false. I think we both value not talking past one another.

I think perhaps where we are in disagreement is in how metaphysics can be done, as well as in how open "falsity" might be -- like, I can hear the reasons from someone I disagree with for why they think I'm false, and I'd like to hear it, but even if I don't find the reasons persuasive I still find the reasoning valuable.

Funnily enough I don't think I'm very sympathetic to mystical metaphysical propositions. :D But that's OK. I'm open to them being discussed meaningfully all the same -- though perhaps those sorts of statements really do need a high degree of agreement before discussions can feel like they were worthwhile.

We could go on like this forever, but I'm fairly certain that the meaning of the term consciousness is not agreed on, that's the point. Nagel thinks there's something it's "like" to be us and calls this consciousness, others disagree that there is something it is 'like' to experience being us and equate consciousness directly with awareness. In what way could one of these definitions possibly be wrong? Yet they can't both be right. — Pseudonym

Well, they can both be right, insofar that we are clear on what we're saying. So if we're talking about "what it is like", then it does no service to a discussion to argue over what consciousness means -- it is, in that context, wrong to say that consciousness is something else.

These are not interpretations of propositions, these are historical facts about the positions broadly held. As I said, I'm not suggesting that nothing outside of hard science has any vague truth value, I'm saying there is a gradation at one end of which is empirical science and at the other some of the more obscure metaphysics and religion. At some point on this gradation it becomes meaningless to debate the matters (and by debate, I mean attempt to show your interlocutor is wrong). I cannot even pinpoint exactly where that line is, but then I cannot pinpoint exactly how many grains of sand are required for it to be a 'pile'. So, the fact that saying "Plato argued that the mind is a blank slate upon which our empirical senses impinges" would be wrong, does not undermine the assertion that any individual propositions of Plato's could be interpreted in any grammatically correct way and no-one could say which interpretation was more 'right', by any measure. — Pseudonym

Is the assertion I provided not grammatically correct?

I can agree with the notion that there are multiple interpretations. But I can't agree that there's no point, or that all one needs is grammar to make an assertion. Interpretative arguments are full of examples from some author -- usually you have to look at the corpus as a whole.

I think maybe this is where we keep talking past one another. In part I think I agree with you, but I don't agree with your conclusions. But more on that in the next paragraph.

Again, you seem to be missing the point, perhaps my writing is not as clear as I'd like to think, but I did write it in a single bolded sentence so I'm not sure why the message isn't getting home - I'm not saying that the beliefs themselves are meaningless, I'm saying that debating them is.. A non-verifiable statement could be packed with meaning, it could be the most meaningful thing ever said, but if it is non-verifiable, then to say it is right or wrong is meaningless, to say it is better or worse is meaningless, without first agreeing what 'better' would consist of. Using a word in a sentence your meaning of which is not the same as the meaning for the person to whom you are communicating is almost literally meaningless. It's practically the definition of the word. — Pseudonym

I disagree. :D

I think where I'm becoming confused is from the first part of your paragraph to your second part. Where we agree is with your bolded sentence. But where we disagree is on verifiability, worth, and agreement.

Let's say consciousness is not verifiable. There is nothing we could point to to decide whether or not consciousness is an illusion or whether it is as real as anything else. In fact we might even be able to say that the debate on conciousness is really like this -- that there is no agreement on, at least, what view is better. (I think that the reductive materlialist understands what Nagel means well enough, they just deny that the existence of consciousness is true -- in a similar manner that someone might say of any entity, like a hole, or a God, or whatever).

Yet, in spite of this, the debate is interesting to myself. It provides a challenge to certain of my views, and forces me to reconcile -- one way or another, though it doesn't have to be the same as those who publish -- my beliefs with the arguments put forth. I think through them and wonder if they are right or wrong, and try to provide reasons for that.

Without the debate then my thoughts would have continued along another trajectory. But I value a challenge to my beliefs, and consciousness was one of those arguments that did challenge my beliefs at one point.

It was the disagreement that was valuable. Not the agreement. And insofar that we at least understand what we mean by terms then we can actually disagree with one another without talking past one another. Of course we can use the same locution to mean different things -- that's true of any word, and why we specify exactly what we mean within the context of a conversation .

So basically if we agree on the one -- that metaphysical statements have meaning, in the sense that they are both syntactical and semantic, and it also seems we agree that two speakers need to be clear about what they mean about a term (to change meanings mid-conversation would be wrong, given what's already set up) -- then where we really disagree is on the value of metaphysical debate. I'd say that the value is relative to whatever beliefs, arguments, attitudes, or whtaever a reader or thinker or interlocutor or whatever currently holds -- call this philosophical preference.

Basically I take a kind of Ramsey-Quine synthesis, which I think answers this point. All scientific theories are in the form of Ramsey sentences. "There are things called electrons which...[the rest of particle physics]", or "There is a relation between humans and their environment which...[the rest of human ecology" etc. Quine then goes on to say that metaphysics is like a science, in that it uses the same techniques on less empirical problems, but to a gradually decreasing degree until it starts becoming meaningless. The sentences become more and more fantastical and relate less and less to the real world, until they are nothing but stories. again, just to drive this point home, that doesn't make them meaningless. In fact I think stories to explain how we exist in the world are of absolutely vital importance and meaning. But it does make trying to argue that one story is better than another meaningless, it does mean that slavishly following someone else's story on the presumption that you can't develop your own meaningless. In short it makes most of the activity of modern metaphysics meaningless. — Pseudonym

Cool. I don't think of metaphysics quite like that. I think of it as the study of what exists, how we come to have beliefs about the nature of things, as well as the study of synthesizing all that comes before -- not that these are all the same, but that's how I group it together in my mind and try to figure out what someone is doing specifically when they say they are doing metaphysics. I think there comes a time when reason no longer can justify beliefs (I have in mind here something like proving that I have a hand, or whatnot), but I'd say even this is fluid and changing with person, time, and place.

So from my perspective, at least, I don't see science as somehow better than metaphysics in its decidability. It's just one tradition of metaphysics in which people are able to disagree and have a measure of decidability -- but I don't think that makes it more purposeful or meaningful in terms of deciding what is the case.