The conclusion of the evolutionary argument against naturalism is that if our cognitive faculties are a product of naturalistic evolution, there is no inherent guarantee that our beliefs are true. Natural selection may have shaped our cognitive abilities in a way that prioritizes survival and reproduction over the accurate perception of reality. (note Donald Hoffman makes the same argument to support his version of idealism) — Tom Storm

This is an interesting argument. Another attempt to co-opt and transform a familiar sceptical/atheist position. But if natural selection is to prioritize survival, it needs to promote accurate perception of reality. Call me cynical, but the same does not necessarily apply to reproduction, which, arguably, often works quite well on the basis of misperceptions and misunderstandings.

If our cognitive faculties are not reliable in providing true beliefs, then the naturalist's confidence in the truth of naturalism itself becomes suspect, as it relies on those very cognitive faculties. In other words, we need a transcendental source for truth. — Tom Storm

The real flaw here is the presupposition that either our cognitive faculties (all of them) are accurate or they (all of them) are not. The awkward truth is that sometimes they are and some of them are not. We learn which is which through the feed-back loop (doing and being in the world) - and we never need to stop learning.

I can see how they might get to a god, but getting to Jesus is much harder. — Tom Storm

Quite so. But Tertullian already co-opted that problem. "I believe because it is unbelievable."

I've met a few people who were converted by this approach, so I suspect it works on some and for a while it was a refreshing change from Aquinas' five ways arguments and the like. ........ But this presents a problem for him [the pressup], if he doesn’t grant intelligibility he can’t reason transcendentally but if he grants intelligibility he grants autonomous reasoning — Tom Storm

Well, all sorts of tactics work - even the traditional approach of standing up and informing the audience that they are all sinners! Actually, this latches on to any private guilt that we might harbour (which I'm sure happens in any social system) and exploits it. Genius!
I'm prepared to believe that even Tertullian's approach might work sometimes.
Which goes to show that conversion is not just a matter of reason. Rationality may creep in after the event, but it doesn't set it off.

'God is the necessary condition of intelligibility and guarantees reason on earth, but he allows humans to use reason for good or ill, via freewill.' — Tom Storm

That's very odd. Reason is supposed to guarantee the truth of its conclusions. The truth might be used for good or ill, but that's not the fault of reason, is it?

There are also Muslim apologists who use presuppositional apologetics to 'prove' Islam. — Tom Storm

It might work better for Islam and Judaism. Though there would still be an awkward gap about proving that the Book in each case was the Word of God.

Relevant and funny clip: — Lionino

Quite so. If I were still teaching, I would use this to show how philosophy should not be conducted and how to ensure that a dialogue is unproductive. One must put one's own view at risk, or nothing will be gained.

Mainly because, as you say, they're ingenious. Quite a stunt to take reason (the skeptic's prized tool against 'superstition') and use the very possibility of rationality as proof for god. But they can also be monotonous and repetitive. — Tom Storm

The puzzle that strikes me is why he thinks his approach might change the mind of an atheist. Agnostics may be more open to it, though this one certainly isn't. It seems more relevant to Christians talking amongst themselves.

It's all very well to talk of rationality, but what, on this account is it? Is it the rationality of Hume, which "is and ought to be, the slave of the passions", or of Aristotle, who revolutionizes Plato's idea of it by observing that "reason, by itself, moves nothing". Why would a rational God present us with the Bible - especially the Old Testament - as its book? I could go on, but it might become monotonous and repetitive.

Yes. I agree, having experimented extensively with entheogens myself, and I think the 'spiritual' aspect is a 'feeling' phenomenon which does not support any claim about the metaphysical nature of reality. Religious and metaphysical conclusions are arbitrary, culturally driven, after the fact add-ons. — Janus

In a sense, yes. Though I'm not sure that "arbitrary" is the right world. I have an impression that the experiences seem to fit in to whatever religious/metaphysical framework the experiencer already has. Which is not to say that they may not change how the ideas are expressed and the aspects that are emphasized.

This is not to say that the experience itself is not rich and cannot be inspiring, even life-changing; it is necessarily vacuous only in the propositional. not the poetical. sense. — Janus

That's certainly true. Though aren't some experiences - "bad trips" - paranoid fantasies, which may be life-changing, but not in a good way. That's why I say they have to be assessed, in the end, by their results in the ordinary world.

Knowledge is not truth to me. It is a tool we use to best assess what is most likely to be true with the observations and reason we have at the time. — Philosophim

We certainly have tools to assess hypotheses and we certainly use "know" when we have discovered it. Knowledge isn't truth; it is applied when someone has discovered the truth. When we have only discovered what is most likely to be true, we use "believe". You can decide to use "know" differently, but if you do, the distinction between knowledge and belief is blurred and pointless. True, people can get things wrong. But that's not a problem. We just withdraw the claim to know.

I'm using general causality because I want to end a debate that's been going on far too long. — Philosophim

I don't think you are going to succeed. There are questions beyond the Big Bang. Whether you call them causal or not, they will, no doubt, be answered. And further questions will develop. And people will call all of these things causes. You can insist they are not, but that won't affect the process.

This time there is no re-invention needed. We have a clear definition of what it is, and what it would take to prove it exists. The Big Bang for example would be changed to, "The known starting point of universal creation" instead of "The first cause of creation". — Philosophim

Careful, now. If you say the Big Bang is the known starting-point of universal creation, you are saying, not only that it is the starting-point of universal creation, but that we know that it is. What you mean is that the Big Bang is the starting-point of universal creation so far as we know or, perhaps better, on the bases of the existing best theories.

There is an issue with your theory. You sweep everything up into one classification, and brush aside the variety and difference in the concepts of causation under one term. This is not wrong, exactly, because we do apply that term to all the different ideas. But it is no more significant that the conclusion that something exists, which neglects the differences between rainbows and trees, numbers and lines, arguments and theories, myths and fables, and all the rest of the many different kinds of object - and hence different kinds of existence (and of logic) that also exist. We have Aristotelian causes, Newtonian causes, Einsteinian causes, Quantum causes, not mention reasons for action, premises and conclusions in mathematical arguments. All of these are answers to the question "why" and begin with "because", but they operate in different ways and different fields.

So I don't say you are wrong. But I do say that you are brushing aside most of the interesting questions - and if you were to explain to me why you are doing that, you would misunderstand me if you explained the cause of your doing so.

Tackling the various proofs/arguments are just for sport. — Tom Storm

I was surprised to discover when I first ventured into this on-line world, that many people seem to be dead serious about the arguments. Which is not to deny that others just love the argument - for sport, as you say.

My favourite apologists are the currently burgeoning presuppositionalists, who bypass empiricism completely (via the transcendental argument and Cornelius Van Til). — Tom Storm

Yes. I have encountered those ideas. I haven't got my head around this, and my reluctance to engage with it is a big part of the reason why. The strategy is undoubtedly ingenious, but doesn't offer the sceptics and unbelievers much incentive to engage. Why do you like them?

In light of recent fashion, I think, 'they/them.' — Tom Storm

Yes. I use that sometimes, but I'm not comfortable with it. It's such a lash-up. But maybe it would not be inappropriate for a Trinitarian God.

I think the religious term for this is ineffable. — Tom Storm

Ineffability is a popular topic in this argument. I wish I could wave my hand and abolish it, But that would be to rely on a rather primitive version of logical positivism, so the grounds for that are not solid. On the other hand, the mystics can only persuade us to accept that their experiences are true, so philosophy will not be impressed. But the fact that some people have such experiences seems undeniable. Dismissing them all as frauds or unbalanced is as implausible as claiming that all such experiences are genuine. In the end, it will come back to common sense and everyday life to sort the sheep from the goats - and the criterion is not truth/falsity.

sacrifice himself to himself to save us from himself because of a rule he made himself? — Tom Storm

,
There is some room for some justifications for sacrifice. But it is too often talked about as if it were just a case of passing the parcel of guilt from the sinner to someone or something else or paying a fine. No, thanks.
You put me in mind of an important point that I did not include. For a very long time, there was, in philosophy, a long series of attempts to prove that God's existence was necessary and that a priori argument could be developed. But lately, it seems that both theists and atheists have agreed that it is an empirical question.

Both sides think that empirical evidence justified their view, so we can conclude that both sides are wrong. But we should remember Laplace's famous reply I had no need of that hypothesis. ("Je n'avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là" - (allegedly as a reply to Napoleon, who had asked why he hadn't mentioned God in his book on astronomy.) See WIkipedia entry on him. For him, it was clearly not an empirical question, but not a necessary question either. For me, it is a question of an attitude, which guides the interpretation of evidence. What does that mean? For a hint, consider Berkeley's argument in his A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge. See, for example, section 109.

I suspect that discussion of God's existence will turn out to be no less infinite that he is supposed to be. (I can never decide whether God should be a he, a she, a s/he or an it.)

If you don't want to do the metaphysics, we can avoid it, but if you don't want to do the metaphysics then what's the point in discussing "first causes"? — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm not sure what doing metaphysics is. It seems to be simply discussing issues in first-order mode - using terms rather than mentioning them. One could frame this debate as an issue about the concept or logic of causation.

An example could be something like my desire for a beer caused me to go to the fridge to look for one. "Cause" in this sense would be completely different from "cause" in the sense of the heat from the stove caused the water to boil. Notice how "desire" is not a physical activity which can be quantified and shown to be actively causing effects through a physical process. — Metaphysician Undercover

On the other hand, it would not be difficult to link your desire to a physical basis - dehydration, perhaps, or level of alcohol in the bloodstream. But they are neither necessary not sufficient for desiring a beer, so they cannot be straightforward causes. Social context etc. might also be factors and those are rules or habits and so, again, not causal.

but knowledge is not infallible, and depending on the unknowns which are hidden underneath that "something known", the knowledge which constitutes the "something known" may even turn out later to be wrong. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well, I prefer to say that people are not infallible, so I would put the point differently. Notice, however, that providing a causal explanation for a rainbow does not conflict with the ordinary descriptions of it, though it may conflict with common sense explanations of it (such as that God put it there as a promise that he would not repeat the Flood.

There are no constraints prior to it coming into being, there are constraints after it comes into being. But what those constraints are cannot be predicted. Meaning it could be a photon, an explosion, or anything else you can imagine. — Philosophim

Well, if a first cause is the first cause of its universe, it may be unconstrained. But if your first cause photon can happen (in an already existing universe), then any constraints may only constrain it after it comes into being, but will apply the moment it does come in to being. But the consequences will, presumably, be unpredictable. Indeed, they must be.

Would you agree that we can have two distinct types, or categories of "cause", in the way I describe above, such that the "first cause" in a chain of one particular category of causes, has a prior cause of a different type? — Metaphysician Undercover

It is a tempting hypothesis and could be particularly useful when we want to link incommensurable theories. But I wouldn't be sure unless I had some examples.

There is the contingent type of actuality which always has the prior potential, and there is the logically necessary type of actuality, demonstrated by the logic to be prior to the contingent actuality, as necessary for the existence of a contingent actuality — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm not sure I can cope with different types of actuality. Can't we just talk about the actuality of contingent things and the actuality of necessary things?

I do not see the problem here. I think that common sense explanations do, very often, rely on unknown events. This is because we explain things without knowing in completion the thing we are explaining. So the unknown is always lurking within the explanation somewhere. — Metaphysician Undercover

One can always dive deeper into an explanation (i.e. ask why a particular causal link holds). There's nothing special there. But there must be something known about A and B as a basis of the explanation. No doubt we all had a moment of illumination when we were presented with the causal explanation of a rainbow. We don't abandon what we knew beforehand and we knew fine what a rainbow is before that. Indeed, we couldn't understand the explanation unless we did know. We add the causal explanation in to our understanding of what a rainbow is. Similarly with wants and needs, beliefs and assumptions and their physical counterparts.

Would you accept, that the rationale, the values etc., which motivate an action, are "causal"? But this would mean that we obviously need to distinguish two distinct types of causation, one being the sense of a causal chain of physical events, the other being the motivators for actions of living beings. — Metaphysician Undercover

"Cause" is defined by the theory/hypotheses that it is part of, or theories and hypotheses have different ideas of what a cause is. I recognize those as different types of causation. Common sense explanations of actions are incredibly complicated. I would not rule out the possibility that some of the factors we appeal to might be considered causal. Examples would be needed. But I'm pretty clear that such explanations are often, even primarily, interpretations of actions. Analysis of all this is further complicated by the familiar fact that actions are mostly describable in different ways and can form into hierarchical structures, and explanations may address just one level of the hierarchy.

I meant that there are no existing proven discoveries of anything that is a first cause. No one to my mind, has ever conclusively proven that any "x" exists without something prior causing it to be. A belief or limitation in current capabilities is not evidence of a first cause. We must have the tools and evidence to conclusively demonstrate something is a first cause. — Philosophim

Yes, I agree. But that means whenever we think we have found a first cause, we must ask ourselves whether that is due to the limitations of our tools and evidence or to it really being a first cause. I would always bet on the former. Under what circumstances could I confidently bet on the latter? Given the ingenuity and determination human beings have displayed over the last 400 or 500 years, I can't imagine any.

My point was that every time something like a first cause or brute fact has been found, we have redefined (or perhaps better "re-invented") the concept of "cause" and carried on.

I take it that you are not prepared to make any judgements about the relationship between the two "modes of explanation". — Metaphysician Undercover

"Prepared" is the right word. I regard it as an unsolved problem; perhaps I'll have something to offer one day. If not me, it will be someone else.

I don't agree with your claim that in the past it was popular to just say that the two were different, and leave it at that. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm sorry, It was not helpful to use the word "popular" in different senses in successive sentences. This observation refers to Ryle and his followers. They thought that identifying categories was the end of the story, but that isn't satisfactory on its own - at least, not in this case. Ryle seems to recognize this in the context of his discussion of perception in "Dilemmas"

I think the popular way was just to take it for granted that intention, purpose, free will, acts to produce a first cause. It was popular just to accept the way things appear to us, — Metaphysician Undercover

It was certainly popular amongst some philosophers. Whether that way is the way things appear to us or is an analysis from a specific philosophical point of view (dualism) is another question.

Common sense explanations cannot possibly depend on unknown and unseen events in the brain (or mind); if that were so, common people like us could never explain what people do. In their simplest form, explanations of action give the agent's rationale for action (together with indications how sound that rationale is).

That cannot be the same as a causal explanation, because a rationale justifies the action, whereas a causal explanation does not justify or fail to justify what it explains. A major difference is that a rationale explains the values that provoke or motivation the action, and causal explanations have no equivalent to the question what motivates an action.

Finally, a false belief, a delusion or mistake can explain an action but only facts can explain events that are subject to causality.

Mathematical and logical explanations are, of course, different again.

The fact that all three modes of explanation rely on "why?" and "because" can mislead one into thinking that they are more similar than they really are.

Have you got a brief sketch of why you might argue this? — Tom Storm

Not really. My first question would be to find out which concept of God is at stake. When I say "the concept of God is incoherent", I usually have in mind the Christian conception of God. But even that takes many forms. Each thinks that the others are all wrong, but they can't all be right. They can all be wrong, though. But then, how to decide right and wrong here? The trump card is, of course, faith, and arguably coherence and incoherence aren't applicable to questions of faith. Internal consistency might be.

My best first argument is the problem of evil, which I'm sure you are familiar with. It has the virtue of being applicable to all Christian conceptions.

There is an argument whether omniscience and omnipotence are compatible. If God knows everything, can God alter anything?

Then there's the idea that God is everywhere at all times, which makes it hard to understand what his knowledge of the world would be like. Certainly not like ours, since we are at all times located at a specific place and time.

There is a list of more detailed issues, all well known in Christian theology, none of which have what I would call a solution. In alphabetical order, divinity/humanity of Jesus, original sin, redemption through sacrifice or scapegoating, transubstantiation, trinity,

The most general objection is that the concept of God only makes sense in a dualist (or maybe an idealist a la Berkeley) metaphysics.

I would classify God's existence as, for believers, a "hinge" proposition, around which all other issues are seen. But I also think the doctrinal question whether God exists is not as important as Christians (and Muslims) believe it to be. Religion is essentially a question of attitude and way of life. Doctrine is secondary.

Does that help?

With the understanding that there must be at least one first cause (there is no limitation of course) we have a very clear definition of what a first cause entails. This lets us do something great: require proof. While its logically necessary that first causes exist, saying, "X is a first cause" is a high bar of proof that is falsifiable. Thus we can propose ideas or have faith, but none of it has teeth without evidence. — Philosophim

I must have missed something. I thought you were saying that while first causes must exist, there were no existing examples.

I accept that there are first causes in pragmatic applications of an existing causal framework. Call them pragmatic. There are also first causes inherent, defined by, any causal framework - even if only as conceptually possible. But the concept of a cause outside a framework of definition and explanation, is meaningless. Hence any actual causal explanation is relative to its framework.

Well, agnosticism means that one doesn't "know" whether gods exist or not. However it is an error to then assume that believers and nonbelievers "know" that gods exist or don't exist. It is more accurate (when dealing with unknowable entities, like gods) to substitute "believe" for "know" on the question of existance. — LuckyR

For me, since I think that the concept of "God" is incoherent or perhaps empty, I'm inclinced to think that no-one, including me, knows that God exists or that God does not exist. But I do know that the concept of God is incoherent. It is clear, I would say, that believing on faith that God exists (or doesn't) is not knowing that God exists or doesn't. However, people often confuse knowledge with subjective certainty, and belief with subjective uncertainty - and this is not unreasonable; it's just a complication. But then, there's another complication, that religious belief is often called belief rather than knowledge; I'm not quite sure why and this may be an old-fashioned view, but the creed does begin "I believe..." I think this is a specialized use of belief to mean "trust"; it's not unknown outside religion.

But it's important to bear in mind that belief that p is belief that p is true, and hence it is hard to distinguish between belief and knowledge from a subjective point of view. The consequence is that knowledge claims should never be made for one's own beliefs, only for the beliefs of others - except in cases where the belief is "common knowledge" or certainly true.

That statement was addressed to Philosophim. To you i said I didn't understand you. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm sorry for the confusion. I'm still working out how to deal with situations when several people are involved.

But don't you agree that what you call "springs of action" are first causes in a causal chain? A person makes a choice, springs to action, and this begins a causal chain. If, later, we look back at the causal chain which has progressed from a spring to action, we see the choice which was made as "the end" of the causal chain, or the "final cause" in that chain. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes and no. There are two modes of explanation involved and much difficulty about the relationship between the two. There is, presumably, a causal chain involved. There is also what is usually called a rational or purposive explanation involved. These two are in different categories or frameworks. We are finding out a good deal about the first kind. We use the second kind every day. We (well, philosophers,) are in a good deal of confusion about the relation between the two. It won't do to say that they are just different kinds of explanation and leave it at that - though that was popular a few decades ago. Nor will it do to "reduce" one to the other or identify one or other as the "real" explanation. How much more do you want? It would take us miles beyond this thread. Perhaps I should post that paragraph as the beginning of a discussion.

As a thought experiment I hypothetically concluded that if things form self-explained, — Philosophim

There's a puzzle. I don't think that idea of a cause that is self-explanatory makes much sense. It doesn't seem to fit with your idea of causality. Is that meant to be an example of a first cause?

I find new questions to be fun and exciting to think about! I'm glad you do as well.) — Philosophim

So finding a first cause is just a reason for developing new ideas. It has happened before and no doubt it will happen again Whether one calls them causal or not really seems much less important.

No. A first cause is absolute. It is something which exists without a prior cause. It is not that we chose that as a starting point, it means that there comes a point in exploring the chain where there is no prior cause for its existence. It will exist, simply because it does. The logic points out this occurs whether the chain of causality is infinite or finite. — Philosophim

Yes, I take the point that there is a difference between the Big Bang and an arbitrarily chosen starting-point. The Big Bang is implicit in the framework of explanation. But then, there are these pesky people who ask questions which do not go away. And so we start developing new ideas, based on what we already know, but also going beyond them. Whether you call them causal or not is not really very interesting.

I let an AI break down the flaws of your OP. — Christoffer

I have to say that I trust your judhement about what an AI says way before I trust the AI. Why do you think that the AI can do that job? Mind you, I mostly agree with what you say.

The invention is the interpretation of reality that correlates to the real thing of 2 something. — Christoffer

H'm It's very tempting to think that way. But the question is always how we can "correlate" to a reality that exists independently of our interpretation. I'm not saying it can't be done. On the contrary, it must be done. So the criteria for "non-verbal" reality need to be built in to our interpretation.

But the key point is that the density of the universe right at the event of Big Bang would mean dimensions having no meaning, therefor no causality can occur in that state. It is fundamentally random and therefor you cannot apply a deterministic causality logic to it. And since you can't do that, how can you ask any of the questions in the way you do? It's either cyclic in some form, or it is an event that has no causality as its state is without the dimensions required for causality to happen. — Christoffer

I read this as saying that when explanation reaches rock-bottom, in one sense, it ends, but in another sense requires a new conceptual framework. Which people are developing in the case of the Big Bang. For me, it was always obvious that would happen. It has happened before and no doubt it will happen again.

Ok, you agree with me then. The free will act I described appeared to be random, but really it was a "first cause". — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say that free will is really a first cause. I meant to say only that that is the "traditional" view and as an example of what happens when you reach rock-bottom in a specific pattern of explanation. At that point, further explanation will require a categorial change in thinking. It was not a very good example. My own view is that actions by people are explained in a non-causal framework, by purposes, values and reasons. "Free will" is an umbrella for all the "springs of action" - convenient because it doesn't require us to consider all the complexities. Simplification can be useful - and misleading. It's a big topic and won't be helpful here.

No, I think the definition of a first cause is a constant. Causality also does not change. — Philosophim

I can see that your definition is constant. But it's empty. People will look for something.

In other words Ludwig, no one has ever proven anything as a first cause. While logically necessary that at least one exist, it is extremely difficulty to prove that any particular existence is one. — Philosophim

I think you are understating the case.

Can they prove that there is nothing prior that caused it? — Philosophim

Proving a negative like that is indeed difficult to impossible. So it looks as if your concept of the first cause is empty. There's not much fun in that.

Do you accept a free will act as a true first cause? — Metaphysician Undercover

It depends what you mean by "true first cause". In certain traditions of philosophy, free will is the traditional cause of actions (as distinct from events); it is traditionally regarded as special - either as an uncaused cause or causa sui. Neither concept makes much sense. But then, since explanations of actions qua actions are different in kind from causal explanations, they are regarded as belonging to a category different from causal explanations. In which case free will is not a cause at all.

In a similar fashion, Stephen Hawking once proposed a causally closed cosmological model of the universe , in which the universe was hypothesized to be finite but without a spatio-temporal boundary. Nevertheless, he famously asked "what breathes fire into the equations?". But this philosophical question as it stands cannot be translated into the spatio-temporal language of physics. Furthermore, there isn't a consensus that Hawkings philosophical question is even meaningful, let alone how it should be solved or dissolved if it is. — sime

Well, setting fire to equations is clearly a metaphor, standing in place for a question we do not know how to ask yet. In my opinion. Poetry standing in at the limits of physics. I love it.

A universe has finite causality. What caused this universe to have finite causality over infinite causality? It just is, there's no prior explanation.
A universe has infinite causality. What caused this universe to have infinite causality over finite causality? It just is, there's no prior explanation. — Philosophim

Indeed. Just as there must be a first cause, even if we don't know what it is yet (although the Big Bang occupied that space for a while), so there must be some brute facts. But that may only mean that we haven't formulated the question yet.

We can attribute a starting point anywhere in a chain of causality. For example, when explaining why a ball falls when I let go of it, I don't have to address quantum physics. Does that mean that quantum physics and a whole host of other things are not part of the causality of the ball falling? No. It just means we don't look at it creating a mathematical origin or starting point. — Philosophim

Yes, you're right. I've stumbled in to two different uses of "first cause". One is the everday contextual use of first cause, where we pick a starting-point pragmatically, to suit the needs and interests of the situation we are in. The other is mathematical, or conceptual, and identifies the foundations of the system we are applying. We reach a point, where the explanations run out, but that does not hold us up for ever.

So we formulate a different, and incommensurable, theory which reaches past that point. But the concept of causality is changed in the process. Newton and others, redefined the subject matter of physics in order to mathematize it and introduced the concept of gravity because it was needed (a brute fact, if you like). That concept of time and space was undermined by relativity and quantum physics. Now, physicist/mathematicians are reaching past the Big Bang. But any explanation will involve changing the rules, since "before" the Big Bang, neither time nor space existed. "First cause" will change its meaning.

I find new questions to be fun and exciting to think about! I'm glad you do as well. — Philosophim

Quite so. That's why some of the thinking that's going on in the depths of physics, beginning to open up the inevitable and obvious questions around the Big Bang is so exciting - and puzzling and incomprehensible - to me, at least. And there's the paradox. Identify a first cause and you open up new questions. That's one reason why I classify a causal chain as contextual.

The catch is that whatever caused the Big Bang (or whatever else you identify as a first cause) requires that you think differently. As happened in the step from Aristotelian physics to Newton, from alchemy to molecular theory - and then beyond. The same thing happened with Relativity. Both of which seem normal (sort of) now.

We can attribute a starting point anywhere in a chain of causality. — Philosophim

That's why I call it contextual. To be sure, we explain why your ball falls from the point you let go of it. But then we can identify a new starting-point, before you let go of it, and find additional explanations which graft on to your original starting-point. Alternatively, if you ask "Why did you let go of the ball?" you may find yourself changing gear and answering in terms of actions, purposes and reasons - in a different categorial framework. But even if you stick to traditional physics, in the end, you find that you have to change gear and think about the nature of time and space, which requires new thinking, which opens up relativity and quantum physics.

BTW. Don't you think that the idea of the chain of causality is a bit misleading? We can identify many chains of causality, depending on what questions we are asking, and we see those chains intersecting and overlapping. Wouldn't it be better to think of causality as a web, from which we can select specific chains depending on our needs at the time? That's another reason why I classify a specific causal chain as contextual.

Correct! I hope that's cleared things up a bit jgill. I appreciate you sticking with me through it. — Philosophim

I seem to have happened on this thread at a moment of agreement. Congratulations to both of you. Can I just check that I've understood correctly?

Now put the chain somewhere on a graph. The 'line''s many points are simply the links in the chain. The first link is the beginning of the line, the first point is the beginning of the line. It doesn't matter where the origin is right? — Philosophim

I interpret this as saying that causality is contextual. We can post any convenient starting-point for a causal system. I agree with that understanding.

A first cause is a logical necessity where causality exists. — Philosophim

And since causality requires time and time and space are not absolute, but relative, then surely causality must be relative. Surely?

While yes, a God is not impossible, neither is any other plausibility you can imagine. — Philosophim

On the face of it, that's not particularly re-assuring. There will be people who assign the name "God" to whatever the first cause is. That will be less attractive to them if we clearly identify causality as relative. In addition, of course, God as first cause would be a god of the philosophers, not a god of faith.

3. If the logic holds, this is a final debate on the matter. Its a solution, done, finished. Now instead of debating this tired subject, we can move onto new debates. What does the fact that there is a first cause entail? Can we work out probabilities of things forming? What does that tell us of the nature of the universe? Do we continue to look for explanations to things, or is it reasonable to reach a point where it doesn't matter anymore? — Philosophim

You are right, of course. But you've just demonstrated that any first cause will generate new questions - especially the last one. That's not a problem.

I should have said that I learnt a lot and enjoyed the debate. Perhaps we'll meet again. SIgnor (Senor?) Lionino.

I got involved in this because I'm interested in the debate about religion. We've ended up with the connection to epistemology, probability theory and so on. In a way, there's nothing wrong with that, and we could pursue our differences (which are many and radical) even on this thread. But I don't want to get absorbed in those subjects just now, and you clearly have a thoroughly thought through system in place, so that debate would be quite demanding. I expect you will get more out of a discussion with people who appear to be more on the same page, or at least the same book, as you.

my background and (one of my) passions are physics and mathematics. — Lionino

Well, that certainly seems to make sense. But that may be stereotyping, No doubt you will feel that it makes sense also that I have no background whatever in those disciplines. Apart from philosophy, you could say that my background is in literature, music and history. That doesn't mean I don't think that physics and mathematics are unimportant in any way. I've always taken an interest in what's going on as part of the laity.

That is our difference, I only count the first as agnostic. Recognising p as incoherent for me implies believing not-p. — Lionino

H'm. Do you have a background in logic, specifically the truth-functional calculus? In that system, everything is either true or false. The law of excluded middle applies. When a sentence is malformed (Chomsky's "colourless green ideas sleep furiously" is a good example), you have a problem. You can say that it is not a sentence or a malformed sentence (not a wff) and hence no truth-value can be assigned or that it belongs in some third class (truth-value). But you cannot say or believe that it is true and you cannot say or believe that it is false. The same applies to the contradictory - "Colourless green ideas do not sleep furiously" in this case.

I was dealing primarily with rational belief, where evidence and logic are used as justification. I tried searching into irrational belief and emotional belief and I could not find much unfortunately. — Lionino

I don't think philosophers are comfortable with irrational belief. But many beliefs have emotions attached to them. We're not machines.

I can say however that emotional commitments such as "I believe my wife is not cheating" can sometimes not be belief. Sure, they say "I believe", but what they really mean is that they "want to believe", but in the back of their heads they know it is not true. I am not sure if in someone's psychology reason and emotion will always be separate in belief-formation, or if they mix sometimes. — Lionino

Something that sometimes happens is a bad basis for generalizing about the concept. Your example is a case of what some people would call "wishful thinking". But I don't accept that you can rule it out as a belief just because it is awkward for you.
I think they often mix. To say that they don't represents us as disinterested machines. Some beliefs don't matter to us, but some do.

I would say that for believing something reluctantly, the "reluctantly" is the "I want to believe part", which can be discarded when we give an assesment of the strenght of the belief. — Lionino

What do you mean "discarded"? If I come, reluctantly, to the conclusion that my spouse is cheating, the emotion doesn't disappear. Most likely, it will be reinforced.

Many people hold the black-and-white view of belief where you either believe something or you don't, or the black-white-grey view where you believe, don't believe, or disbelieve. — Lionino

I've no problem with you unfolding the fan. But it wasn't clear to me that you think that the strength or weakness of belief is proportional to the evidence, - or perhaps you mean "should be" proportional to the evidence? I just think that's not the whole story. One factor that hasn't been mentioned is the idea that some propositions have a special status in that they are foundational and more or less immune to refutation. This is the category of what used to be called a priori or "analytic".

Whether we want to call a region of those shades "strongly believe" and the other "weakly disbelieve" is simply a semantic detail. — Lionino

H'm. Surely what your diagram means is not just a detail?

The epistemological status of belief is relevant only to those who insist it must be. — Arne

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. There's no doubt that many beliefs are held, but not on rational grounds; that doesn't mean the people who hold them are irrational or that they don't really hold those beliefs. But it is always interesting to ask whether a belief is held on rational grounds and if one wants to know whether that belief counts as knowledge, it is essential to ask that question.

.... though atheism isn't (for most) possession of proof positive that gods don't exist, it is the disbelief in gods (regardless of the source of the disbelief). — LuckyR

So in the terms in that quotation, agnosticism would be neither belief not disbelief, but, perhaps suspension of judgement or a belief that the question is malformed and therefore unanswerable.

It does seem to be the case that some (many) people don't think the distinction between agnosticism and atheism is important. And indeed, for some purposes, it isn't. But then, for other people, on other occasions, it is.

Isn't philosophy's goal to tidy up our minds? — Lionino

Not necessarily. I prefer an overview of what's happening. When I understand that, I might do a bit of tidying up, but only if it serves some purpose. Tidying up just for the sake of a system is regimentation, which has its uses (in mathematics and science, for example) but I see no virtue in it for its own sake - and it can be oppressive to people and misleading in philosophy.

Edit: I forgot to add and I am not uploading the file all over again. Left arrow is 180º degrees, right arrow 0º degrees, and upwards arrow 90º degrees. — Lionino

It's OK. Your diagram was clear enough for me to work that out. It is a lovely diagram.

Doxastic attitudes: believing that p and its adverbs (strongly, weakly) — Lionino

These lists are very helpful. I wasn't expecting anything like that. I would have counted everything you've listed as epistemic or doxastic. Does emotional commitment (like belief in God) count as believing strongly and believing something reluctantly (like believing that your friend has scammed you) count as believing weakly?

If there is a problem to solve, for me, it is that true agnosticism (90º degrees belief) hardly exists. — Lionino

But that's just a consequence of how you present the phenomena. a single point on the scale seems improbable. 89 degrees is also highly improbably, But a range between 85 and 90 is more probable. You assign so many values to all the other beliefs that you create a specific impression of the relationship between them. It's got nothing to do with what's actually going on.
It's the difference between a dimmer and a light switch.

The question is whether to see all varieties of agnosticism as the same kind of thing, like a bowl full of apples, or as different varieties, like a bowl with apples and oranges and kiwi fruit and maybe a few nuts. I go for the latter. Agnostic because there's no (not enough) evidence is one thing; agnosticism because the concept of God is incoherent is another; agnosticism because religion is the cause of much evil is yet another. I can't fit those on to a single scale. Why do I have to?

It is true that all those varieties of agnosticism can be held strongly or weakly, so it would be comprehensible if one proposed a separate scale for each variety. But then the same will apply to atheism and to theism.

I think you are fastening on a specific feature of belief - that it can be strong or weak - and turning that into an entire system. But belief is more complicated than that.

Sorry, this post is a bit scattered.

"Agnostic" is somewhat used as a catch-all word for the third position. But that is just how many people seem to use the word, very lax. — Lionino

I don’t see any problem with that. As you point out we manage perfectly well with no fine line between “red” and “violet”. Picking out and sorting through the varieties of agnosticism is quite interesting. But what is the actual problem that all this is intended to solve? Or is it just a tidy mind?

there is no fine line to separate agnosticism from believing that p or not-p — Lionino

This proposal, presumably, makes both belief and non-belief rare to impossible just as your similar proposal for agnosticism makes that rare to impossible. What's the advantage in that? I think not accepting p and not accepting not-p is much more than a fine line.

I would reply that {leaving "agnosticism" to an arbitrary range that we are supposed to intuit whether we fall under or not in the moment}, like 'red', is not productive, — Lionino

I think the problem is your obsession with arranging everything on a single scale. The obsession with degrees of belief makes for a tidy diagram but smothers the distinctions that might actually matter here. WHat is the problem you are trying to solve here?

Thus, if we want to have a third position that does occur often, it would be not a genuine doxastic one, which for me is suspending judgement, which can coexist with weakly believing and weakly disbelieving — true doxastic attitudes. — Lionino

I don't follow this at all. I can understand being agnostic with a leaning towards theism and being agnostic with a leaning towards atheism. But the business with percentages and doxastic attitudes is over my head - especially as we now have true agnosticism and truly doxastic. Perhaps I just haven't kept up with the argument.

I believe that scientific belief is more about "will this also happen in the future?" than anything else. There is a commitment to regularity in scientific beliefs for sure, I am not sure if I would call that an epistemic or non-epistemic factor. — Lionino

Even if you are right about what scientific belief is about, it is still a commitment to truth.
It would help me if I had some examples of clearly epistemic and clearly non-epistemic factors. Ditto for doxastic and non-doxastic.

f I don't believe in the existence of God, any god, because there is no evidence for its existence, what does that makes me? An agnostic, an atheist, an agnostic atheist? — Alkis Piskas

I think you are missing the difference between not believing in the existence of God and believing in the non-existence of God. Admittedly, for some purposes, the difference may not matter much. But if you believe that "God" is an incoherent concept, it does matter.

There's an awful lot packed in here.

In the argument that I was referencing, true agnosticism (not knowing whether p) is probabilistically unlikely (almost impossible), as the overall doxastic sway will almost always be towards p or not-p. — Lionino

What makes equally balanced agnosticism "true"? I can see what makes a 90 degree angle a right angle, but that doesn't mean that the only true angles are right angles. There's a complication here, because although right angles are not the only true angles, there is such a thing as a true right angle. But I think that only shows that one needs to be clear about what criterion of truth is at work in each use. You can choose to call equally indifferent agnosticism the only true agnosticism if you like. But I need a better reason than that.

I mixed the actual sense of 'agnostic' with its sense in the discussion of belief in God here. — Lionino

I don't see that agnosticism with a preference one way or the other is restricted to the context of religious belief.

I quote Matthew McGrath — Lionino

I'm puzzled about suspension of judgement. It is one of the non-genuine doxastic attitudes, and yet you use the same phrase to describe "true" agnosticism.

If any non-epistemic factors make a belief "non-doxastic" (not that I'm sure I know what that means), then religious beliers held on faith are non-doxastic. But why would believing that religious beliefs are non-doxastic be non-doxastic?

not doxastic but declarative. — Lionino

I don't quite get this distinction. I suppose you mean that religious beliefs are not rational. I think that is true, but the thread, as I understand it, limits the discussion to rational belief - I'm not sure whether there's such a thing as non-rational knowledge, but there might be, or perhaps some non-rational factors can be part of a knowledge system. After all, scientific beliefs are supposed to be based on a commitment to truth. Isn't that a non-epistemic factor?

A nonce-word is a word that is made for that specific reason and abandoned after. Maltheism is a word that was made for a game, if I recall it properly from yesterday. — Lionino

OK. It seems that nothing hangs on what we say, so we don't have to say anything.

a third truth-value — Lionino

The difficulty with the third truth value is that it is very hard to stop at three. One could probably make a case for thirty-three.

As to undefined, it depends on what it means. — Lionino

Yes. Your two cases are different and there are probably others. Best to leave it at that.

If you are referring to Royal Academies of language, the same is the case for Castillian. Also to some extent Portuguese and Galician. English indeed does not have that in any country afaik. — Lionino

Add Jainism to the mix in case someone wants to reject that Buddhism is a religion. — Lionino

Both I would say, ἀντί can mean 'face-to-face' among other things. — Lionino

Thanks for all these snippets. I was worrying about anti. Those two meanings combined didn't make any sense. But that explanation works perfectly. (My Greek is very rusty.)

Thie are more like nonce-words, like misotheism; antitheism is more established, though not as much as atheism admittedly. — Lionino

I'm not sure exactly what a "nonce-word" is, but I agree that mal-, dys- and miso- theism are pretty marginal. People love a label for a doctrine, especially if it can be given a name derived from Greek or Latin. But it wouldn't be practical to label every variety of possible doctrine about God. "ant-theism" is a stretch for me, but does seem to identify a worth-while difference and it has a certain antiquity that might serve as respectability.

I defend a similar position in this thread on this post, reserving agnosticism to not an epistemic position but a declarative one, of suspending judgement. — Lionino

I don't have a reason to quarrel with you, though I would classify not knowing whether... as epistemic. On the other hand, where would you put someone who thought that the concept of God, at least in Christianity, is incoherent, so that either assertion or denial are inappropriate? Or, I saw a translation of a Buddhist text that had the Buddha saying that the question was "undetermined"? Neither of those is suspending judgement.

And "faith" — mentos987

Yes, of course. I didn't mention that, for me, "" and "faith" are very closely related - and "erusr" and "loyalty" are as well.

I'd say so. Although to me they are more of a way to declare yourself unconvinced. — mentos987

OK. There is good reason to think of any opinion or attitude to religion as, in a sense, religious. There are complications - there always are - but I'm not sure that anything important hangs on them.

I don't think it is a matter of truth or not, but of usefulness. The language we use doesn't make any assertions, until it is used and applied. In the same way, the rules of a game aren't right or wrong; it is moves in the game that are right or wrong. That doesn't mean that they are simply arbitrary. The rules can frustrate the aims of the game - make it unplayable. Those rules can be said to be wrong, but that's not the same as false.

While I do not insist upon anything, is this what you asked about? — mentos987

Yes. it is. So I went back to the discussion you were quoting from.

I guess "insist" in this context sounds pejorative, so I won't insist on that word.

It seems to me that the debate you got involved in about the meaning of "atheism" and "agnosticism" is actually about the meaning of "knowledge" and "belief" and "certainty" and where there is a binary divide and where there is a spectrum. If there was agreement about those issues, the definitions of "agnostic" and "atheist" would fall into place.

It seems to me that goes back to the beginning: -

Belief is connected to knowledge through rationality. If you believe something and you're rational, it's because you know something. If you lack belief in something and you're rational, it's because you lack knowledge in it. Likewise, having knowledge in something makes it rational to believe in it, and lacking knowledge makes it rational to lack belief in it. — Hallucinogen

I'm not sure I fully understand this and I'm not sure it is right.

But it does seem important to me to note that religious belief may not be entirely rational. After all many religious people think that all that is needed is faith, though one hopes that they think that rationality has a part to play after the fundamental commitment of faith is made.

We can call them "hinge" propositions, or some other idea that treats it as a beginning, a starting-point and so not subject to rational standards in the same way as other propositions. We could even say that the foundation of religious belief is not propositional at all, but a commitment to a way of life - the existentialist idea of commitment has a part to play here.

Do we include atheism and agnosticism as kinds of religious belief? I'm not sure. It probably depends on the variety of atheism or agnosticism in question.

Something that seemingly can't be reinforced too much. — wonderer1

It seems to me that what is important and valuable in this thread is the recognition that the traditional binary position that either God exists or it doesn't. The binary opposition, as so often, is not really very helpful.

I'm also wondering who might want to insist that agnosticism is a variety of atheism, rather than being a distinct position. Where does this idea come from? How does it affect the eternal debate?

Perhaps this has been explained earlier in the thread and I've missed it.

Then what happens when there is "antitheism"? Should "atheism" move over as well? If yes, where? If no, what happens with "antitheism"? — Lionino

I don't understand the Ancient Greek word, which means "godlike" in Homer, but "contrary to God" in writers that I know nothing about; they are clearly not classical. The obvious etymology is clearly in favour of the latter meaning, which has apparently been around since 1788.

As to what happens to "atheism", it would be a choice. Sadly, no-one is in a position to make the choice, so, in the end, it will be down to users of the terms to make their choices. (In France and Sweden, at least some of these choices are made by a committee, which has legislative backing, but English doesn't have any equivalent authority.)

If antitheism means active opposition to religious belief (and pratice), then atheism would be left with rejection of belief that does not lead to active opposition. But there are other possibilities, especially when you consider dystheism and maltheism. By the way, there is at least one religion (legally established as such in the USA) that is atheist - Scientology - and Buddhism is agnostic - or at least the Buddha was.

I can't see any mileage in arguing about what the words mean. The best one could do in a situation like the one we are in is to make an agreement about how to use the words and then deal with any substantial issues.

Here is the thing: why should philosophers of religion be able to redefine a word that is at least 2000 years older than their field? A word that many people identify and have identified with while not implying the meaning the SEP claims is standard. It may be fair to say we should use the standard definition here since we are technically talking about phil of rel, but why use atheism when the meaning is better encapsulated in 'antitheism', which the IEP calls "positive atheism"?

In any case, I am very skeptical of the SEP's claims of "standard" or "consensus". Sometimes I fail to confirm the existence of thoa quite relse consensuses when I look into the topic myself. — Lionino

People often assume that "everybody" uses the word in the way that they themselves do, and I'm not surprised that you find cases like those in the SEP - though they should know better. Philosophers should be aware that claiming a consensus should be done cautiously and preferably backed up with evidence. Fortunately, a good dictionary is a quite reliable source of such evidence.

You are right that in Ancient Greek atheos - I'm sorry that I don't have an Ancient Greek keyboard - didn't mean exactly what it means now. Though, on a closer look, Plato does, it seems, use that word to mean "denying the gods" (in the Apology). But otherwise, it seems to mean "godless" or "ungodly" (in Pindar, Sophocles and Lysias) and "abandoned by the gods" (in Sophocles). The meaning in your quotation from Bacchylides does seem to be "ungodly".

But I don't think ancient Greek usage is, or should be, a final authority on what a word means now. For me, the meaning of a word is what it is used to mean and the users of a language may not know or care how the ancient Greeks used it. So use may change over time, and most dictionaries now try to capture how the word is used, rather than how it "ought" to be used or was "originally" used.

I'll skip over the change in usage of "atheist" when polytheism declined and Christianity became dominant.

Perhaps the most relevant change is the invention of the term "agnostic" by T.H. Huxley in 1869. Before that "atheist" could comfortably cover both agnosticism (no assertion or denial) and atheism (denial). Huxley's point was precisely to draw that distinction and once it is drawn, "atheism" needs to move over. People seem to have found this distinction important, and so Huxley's coinage has taken root in the language. (Yes, of course you can check that claim in a dictionary!)

Maybe there are people who don't like this distinction. It would be interesting to know why. I don't see any problem with it.

Why do you think it the main issue? — Banno

That remark was a bit off the cuff and I'm prepared and happy to be wrong, if I am wrong. I found myself picking up breadcrumbs. Put it this way - I remember the book as a collection, not a path, and was interested by the discovery that it isn't. I is an introduction, II is clearly a throwaway and III almost entirely historical. The topics gradually gets more interesting - more "live". (Over this many years, that's quite remarkable, isn't it?)

In a way, calling VI the main issue is over-simplification. The main issue is methodological, but the explanation of it is demonstration rather than analysis, and VI brings the methodology to a live issue and demonstrates that it really can help with a real issue.

The beginning of IV:-
"THE two specimens of logical litigation that we have so far considered in detail, namely, the fatalist issue and Zeno's issue, have been in a certain way academic dilemmas. We almost deliberately let them worry us just because we found them intellectually interesting. They were, up to a point, like riddles to which we want to get the answers only because getting the answers is good exercise. From now on I want to discuss issues which are more than riddles, issues, namely, which interest us because they worry us; not mere intellectual exercises but live intellectual troubles." IV p.54

Which is reinforced at the start of V:-
"You will have felt, I expect and hope, that the fatalist dilemma, Zeno's dilemma, and my puzzles about pleasure are all, though in different ways, somewhat peripheral or marginal tangles - tangles whose unravelling does not promise by itself to lead to the unravelling of the tangles that really matter, save in so far as it may be instructive by example. Henceforward I shall be discussing a spider's-web of logical troubles which is not away in a corner of the room, but out in the middle of the room. This is the notorious trouble about the relations between the World of Science and the Everyday World." V p. 68

Actually, from memory, this was, let's say, not a dead issue back in the day. But it doesn't seem to bother anyone these days. "Science tells us what the world is really like." If only they would read Austin and Ryle.

The end of V is linked to VI:-
"But you will not and should not be satisfied with this mere promise of a lifebelt. Can it be actually produced and thrown to us in the precise stretch of surf where we are in difficulties? To one particular place where the surf is boiling round us I shall now turn." V, p.81

VI leads us to VII:-
"But now I must move on to a certain very special tangle or tangle of tangles, which is, I think, for many people somewhere near the centre of their trouble about the relations between the World of Physical Science and the Everyday World. We can call this 'the Problem of Perception'. I shall not unravel the whole tangle, for the simple reason that I do not know how to do it. There are patches in it, and important ones where I feel like a bluebottle in a spider's web. I buzz but I do not get clear." VI p.92

By the way, do you think there's a link between Ryle and Wittgenstein here, or just a good idea occurring independently? (I know it doesn't matter, but there is that issue about Ryle and Austin never mentioning Wittgenstein. Not that W had published much at the time, so perhaps it doesn't really need explanation.)

And in Vii, we find a link back to IV:-
"In this one negative respect seeing and hearing are like enjoying. It was partly for this reason that on a former occasion I discussed the notion of enjoyment at such length, namely to familiarize you with the idea that well understood autobiographical verbs can still be grossly misclassified. I argued that some theorists had tried to fit the notions of liking and disliking into the conceptual harness which suits such terms as 'pain' and 'tickle'. They had misclassified liking and disliking with sensations or feelings." VII p.102

VIII reads to me like a coda - picking up the methodological theme. It isn't woven in to the structure in the same way.

I'm making sure to clarify what the position is. — schopenhauer1

I'm sure that's your intention. However, I'm afraid that all you can do is to clarify what your position is.

I think the interesting feature of my argument is that all that has to matter is the case that you actually have a causal-history (which we all do), and that actualized causal-history represents your life currently. — schopenhauer1

I agree that does matter. But it does not mean that my life began my DNA was formed. I've tried endlessly to make a discussion with you, but you endlessly repeat the same doctrine, as you did in the message you sent to me on the Ryle thread. So I don't know what to say to you. But I do know that this non-discussion is getting boring. I don't have anything more to say about this, so we'll have to agree to disagree.

Very few philosophical discussions achieve agreement, so that shouldn't be surprising. But it is disappointing. Thank you for your time and attention.

I need to revise the first sentence. The original gave the wrong title for the lecture. The correct title is:-

The title of lecture VI is "Technical and Untechnical Concepts"

Ryle gives a good summary of his own lecture towards the end of it:- “Our alarming and initially paralysing question was this. 'How is the World of Physics related to the Everyday World?' I have tried to reduce its terrors and dispel its paralysing effect, by asking you to reconstrue the question thus, 'How are the concepts of physical theory logically related to the concepts of everyday discourse?'” (p. 91/92)

He traces the problem back to the revolutions in science in the 17th century – Galileo, Descartes and Newton and the doctrine that “a scientific theory has no place in it for terms which cannot appear among the data or the results of calculations.” (p. 82) The catch is where “colours, tastes, smells, noises and felt warmth and cold” belong. He cites Aristotle and Boyle and the doctrine of primary and secondary qualities as responsible for the banishing of colours and tastes from physics. (p. 84)

Well, they are not so much banished as marginalized. “The chemist, the geneticist and the wielder of the Geiger counter, in apparent defiance of this ostracism of sensible qualities, may indeed base their special theories on the smells and tastes of chemical compounds, on the colours of sweet-peas and on the clicks heard from the Geiger counter”. They are permitted as “a reliable index” of physical facts, but still, somehow, not themselves physical facts. (p.84)

He starts with a direct challenge to one view of all this (without actually accusing anyone of adopting it). “It is not true that what is not and cannot be mentioned in a formula is denied by that formula.” He points out that “ .. Again, it is not because algebraical equations will have nothing to do with numbers, that they mention none of them. Rather it is because they are impartially receptive of any numbers you please.” (pp. 83/84)

Next, there is a diagnosis of “one intellectual motive” for “construing a logically necessary impartiality as a logically necessary hostility.” – the tradition of Aristotelian logic. It seemed obvious that what was measured by thermometer or ruler and colour or taste were both “qualities” of an object. So the distinction was drawn (by Boyle, he thinks) between primary and secondary qualities. But it is a mistake to classify both in the same way. (p. 84/85)

This is a new idea (and a new one in these lectures). Expressions like “‘Quality', ‘Property', ‘Predicate', ‘Attribute', ‘Characteristic', ‘Description' and ‘Picture'” – the latter is a survivor from the previous lecture – push together concepts of very different kinds, and this is what constitutes the dilemmas that result. (p. 85) Ryle calls them "smother-words". The only perplexing thing in the situation is whether we ought to say that being a trump-card is a 'property' or 'attribute' of the Queen of Hearts. …. This is not a Bridge-player's worry but a logician's worry. (p. 86)

We cannot answer the question what the Queen of Hearts can and cannot do unless we know the game that’s being played. (p. 86) This leads him to the concept of “theoretical luggage” or “theory-ladenness” as the critical factor in creating the illusion of a puzzle.

He distinguishes the card-playing example which he pursues throughout the lecture from the scientific theories. But acknowledges that card games and physics (or economics) are activities of very different kinds. First, we can participate or not in card games but physics and economics are part of all our lives and second, the “thinking” involved in card games is about how to win, but in economics, for example is how to get the best bargains; thinking about physics is different again. (p. 88)

And so he moves on to the main issue – perception.

If substance metaphysics, causal closure, and superveniance are your starting points, — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm not sure I have starting-points as such. I'm just interested to understand what's going on here. I guess you're telling me that emergence only exists within a quite tightly defined context.

After all, if mind is strongly emergent, and thus a fundamental, irreducible force with sui generis causal powers, how is that not what people generally mean by dualism? — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think that's a very good point.

I see weak emergentism as most reasonable, and in the context of weak emergence the emergence is only epistemic. So on this way of looking at things there is nothing for emergence to do, except provide cognitively limited being like ourselves with conceptual frameworks that are manageable. — wonderer1

I only meant that providing ourselves with conceptual frameworks that are manageable is quite an achievement and well worth having.

Of course it is your brain is processing the data from your eyes. But it's still a cat, and it's still just a line. — Banno

I think the devil is that is in those little words "just" and "is". Do we need any more that multiple descriptions in different contexts?

Emergence, if it is to help us here, has to be akin to "seeing as", as Wittgenstein set out. So once again I find myself thinking of the duck-rabbit. Here it is enjoying the sun. — Banno

I have very little idea what emergence is, but I'm thinking of it as a kind of analysis in reverse.

So on this way of looking at things there is nothing for emergence to do, except provide cognitively limited being like ourselves with conceptual frameworks that are manageable. — wonderer1

Wouldn't that be a big step forward?

E.g. Mermin: "the Moon is demonstrably not there when no one is observing it." — Count Timothy von Icarus

I expect you know that idea is about 300 years old. Berkeley articulated and defended it. It drove people crazy then. Nothing changes. Curiously enough, he also re-inscribed dualism back into his system.

The idea is that you don't get those blocks to form a sphere, etc. unless you radically alter the paradigm, the equivalent of pulling out a Sawzall and some wood glue and tearing your blocks apart. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Or you could make your blocks a slightly different shape.

Such a house built with the blocks is reducible to the blocks. You can compute the "possible houses," and their properties from knowledge of the blocks alone. The structure of the house would be analogous to some sort of "weak emergence." Strong emergence is irreducible, and thus "physically fundamental." If substance metaphysics, causal closure, and supervenience are your starting points, "like magic" is often how strong emergence is defined. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't know enough about these concepts to make a sensible comment. Apart from wondering why people want to start from those starting-points, given that they create problems, rather than resolving them. I guess I'm just a dinosaur.