I like that. I like it a lot. Put far better than me. — Stephen Cook

Wow... thank you also, Stephen! I seem to be doing really well on this thread! :grin:

I must say that I’m impressed with your ability to philosophize. You are definitely the most impressive person who has responded to me thus far. — TheHedoMinimalist

Wow... thank you! :grin:

[Heavily edited because I realized there were a few things I flubbed when I originally posted the below. I was just waking up.]

Again, it's important to begin by distinguishing between attempting something like a scientific definition that gets at the heart of what we are dealing with when we call things alive (or at least, tries to), and attempting to get at what's inside people's heads when they use the word "alive." They're two different things, and they call for two entirely different responses.

So when you say:

that concept of life has been around long before the theory of evolution was accepted by anyone — TheHedoMinimalist

Yes, you're perfectly correct. But then, my tree and node definition wasn't an attempt at lexicography. Science, and scholarship more broadly, will always define and redefine its terms utilizing its current understanding of the world.

Surely you would agree that a scientific concept can accurately describe something that existed long before that concept was defined? Cuz if you don't... we're in major trouble with that whole "big bang" thing!!! :gasp:

Sooo... I hope we're in agreement that this is a purely lexical argument. And I wasn't attempting to do lexicography in this instance. In terms of the ordinary sense of the word, I think Cookie Monster did a better job than I did. Which is why I quoted him in the first place! :wink:

If you want to do lexicography, as opposed to biology, one point I would make is that natural languages frequently have their words redefined too. Can't you think of a term whose meaning has changed significantly just over the course of your own lifetime? It's not that long ago that the term "geek" had far more negative connotations than it does now. And originally it referred to a person in a freak show whose act was to bite the heads off live chickens!

Also, in the technical meta-language of linguistics, I think it's clear that the term "life" seems to be polysemous. "Poly" as in many (or at least more than one), "sem" as in semantics. By which I mean it has more than one meaning, and no-one is going to be able to reconcile them all. In fact, polysemous words are really more than one word that just happens to share the same surface form. They sound the same, and we may or may not spell them the same.

Think of the word "spring." We have the season of that name, we have a coiled, usually metal thing, and we have the verb "to spring." All may share in common the idea of pent up energy that is being, or can be released. But you won't be able to come up with a comprehensive definition that applies to all three; and you won't get very far if you don't understand that a season is not the same thing as a coiled piece of metal. Similarly, the term "life" may have a kind of semantic core that all meanings share... or, we may be stuck with something more like Wittgenstein's "family resemblance." Or there may be usages that share no discernible commonality at all.

But my main point being, from a linguistics perspective, the sense in which your plant may "come alive"


...and the sense in which it always was alive, are essentially different words with the same surface form. I think that is, ultimately, the only way you can make coherent sense of the proposition that something that is alive became alive.

Of course, as you say, there's also metaphor, but I don't off the top of my head have anything especially interesting to say about how metaphor works! :razz: I'm only going to observe that distinguishing between a commonly used metaphor and a different meaning of the same surface form is a fairly challenging task in linguistic research, and I'm really not sure how you would go about addressing that. So when we say that a thread is "alive," is that a different meaning, or are we just using the word "alive" in a metaphorical sense? I'm not sure, and I'm not even entirely sure how we would go about resolving the question.

Having mulled over it some more, my gut feeling - and it's only a gut feeling - is that there is a word "alive" that is the noun form of "lively." That's the word you're using when your plant comes "alive," the thread is "alive," and so on. Of course, linguistic research is done purely on the gut feelings of native speakers, but it takes more than just the one speaker. Also, they don't call them "gut feelings" but "intuitions," which sounds a little more academically respectable. :smile:

Okay, there's a bunch of stuff you raised that I still haven't addressed, but I'm now going to start a new post to deal with them to try to keep each individual post at a reasonable length...

I couldn't resist. I suggest you blame auto-correct!

I can't rid myself of the oft-quoted motto "if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a dick, it's probably a duck" — Pattern-chaser

Yeah... I'm gonna have some difficulty ridding myself of that one too! :grin:

An entity must exist that is capable of replication and the resources necessary for such replication should be available. — Stephen Cook

it appears as though infertile humans wouldn’t qualify as life by the ... requirements you have listed — TheHedoMinimalist

I’ve been thinking about how I might myself deal with this objection. Of course, it applies not just to biologically infertile humans, but to all organisms that do not self-replicate. Worker ants, and for that matter any organism that simply fails in the evolutionary game. Could we say that a mayfly that died without ever managing to breed was never alive? There seems to be something wrong with this.

So to offer a slightly more refined version of my definition, I’d say that once you start with a complex thing that self replicates, evolution is ignited. Once that happens, you generate a tree structure that continues to exists because at least some nodes do self replicate.

Once you have that, each node on that tree – each individual organism – qualifies as alive. Regardless of whether it, as an individual node, self replicates or not.

Indeed, we may even recognize that the very fact that many nodes do not self replicate is itself a vital aspect of the evolutionary process that creates and maintains life.

I myself want to consider two different approaches to deciding what life is. First of all, life is a natural language word – specifically from the English language. One approach to this question might be a lexical or psycholinguistic one, in which we attempt to find out what native speakers of English have in their heads when they use the word. I think this might offer us a fair idea, naïve though it may seem:



The second approach is a more scientific one. Having started off with this naïve “folk biology,” we might attempt to advance to a deeper, more rigorous definition of what we have really been studying when we have been studying life. This is, of course, a fundamentally different question, and calls for a different answer.

One theory of life is that life is that which self replicates. But, as has so often been observed, flames self-replicate. Yet they don’t seem to be alive.

A second theory is that organization, or complexity is what defines life. Under this approach, whole ecosystems, or even the Earth itself, may be deemed alive. But is the space shuttle alive? How about a nuclear power plant? They seem pretty complex and highly organized. But alive – and alive in the same sense that a frog or a human is alive? Most of us would have some doubts.

So I am going to suggest that there is one very specific reason why we should combine the two, finding that when we have done so, the whole is indeed greater than the sum of the parts. And that is that when we have something that is both complex and self replicating, evolution happens. Which creates a virtuous circle of ever increasing adaptivity and complexity.

So the reason our particular form of life became life was because it started with a chemistry that had both these things.

The other properties that we typically observe in life, are “merely” the practical necessities that thermodynamics imposes on any self replicating orderly system. Life, as Cookie Monster so wisely taught us, needs to eat and respire. This is simply because any closed system inevitably progresses towards entropy over time. Thus, in order for an orderly system to self replicate, it needs to input and utilize energy.

Similarly, homeostasis is “merely” winning the battle against entropy. At least for a while.

My definition also has the property (I would say advantage) of allowing for forms of life with completely different physical bases. For example, highly complex robots that can build others of their kind. These too would count as alive. Similarly so complex self replicating pieces of code. [Note: while I meant computer code when I wrote this, upon re-reading I am struck by the incredibly obvious realization that "complex self replicating pieces of code" perfectly describes our own genomes too.]

Whether viruses, which by definition do not technically self replicate, but depend wholly on other living things to replicate them, should be alive, is an interesting question.

For myself, I believe that they should be.

My reason for this is simple: their particular kind of order also activates the same forces of evolution that self-replication does. Thus, they seem to have essentially the same kind of orderliness, be subject to essentially the same rules, and in the words of Lt. Commander Data, overall be “more alike than unlike.“

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4VxbnGbWbM

Astonishingly, the SEP doesn't seem to have a dedicated page on logical positivism!

https://plato.stanford.edu/search/search?query=logical+positivism

Nor the IEP.

I say it cannot forbid literally everything, without forbidding 'forbidding literally everything'. — Shamshir

I can't fault your logic there! And truthfully, that hadn't occurred to me.

Kant says only to act in ways that you would allow everyone to act, all the time.

My response to that is that if you apply some creativity, you can describe any action in such a way that your description (or "maxim") also fits some behavior that you would never want to become universal.

Take, for example, what I am doing right now: typing a string of characters into a keyboard. Now, most of the time I'm completely fine with allowing everyone to do that. But if that string of characters happens to be a launch code that kicks off thermonuclear Armageddon, then I am absolutely not! So according to Kant, I must now and forevermore judge typing to be a deeply immoral activity!

To drop the word "forbidden" and express the point in more Kantian language, I would not want everyone to follow a maxim that says "execute everyone who engages in philosophy!" Therefore I would not want the practice of acting on maxims to become universal. Therefore acting on maxims is itself immoral!

But...

Don't forget: this is an ethical debate, not an ontological one. Kant's CI goes to what is ethical, not to what exists. So if acting on maxims itself is immoral, that does not mean that maxims cease to exist. It could just be taken to mean that we're steeped in sin no matter what! So rather being cancelled out in a double negative, I would suggest that my fundamental point is now doubly true!

Or, in the immortal words of Saint Bartholomew, who himself was quoting from Homer, "You're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't!"

On a completely different note, If you haven't already done so, I encourage you to read the other posts in this thread, especially tim woods'. I admit to only knowing Kant at second hand, and so must make room for the possibility that he is right when he says things like

It is an easy read to misunderstand. I submit you have not understood it, and commend it to your attention for the read it deserves. — tim wood

But tim, if you're reading this too, I respond that there are a LOT of books I really need to read. For now, while I would be a fool not to at least make room for the possibility that I have misunderstood (or perhaps I can honestly say "been misinformed about" Kant), you have not convinced me that that is the case.

If you could quote specific sections of the text that support your view of what Kant is really saying, I would be more convinced! :wink:

If you just do a search of critique of pure reason pdf, you'll get a lot of options.

EG http://strangebeautiful.com/other-texts/kant-first-critique-cambridge.pdf

got tips? — Shamshir

My only tip is that I'm referring to the old pen and paper role playing game from the 90's.

Oh, and try it: you'll love it.

You know, I've thought about it some more, and I can see that it is necessary for me to recant on something I said in my previous post. I said that:

As for how we may conceive of that which does not objectively exist, I don't think we need to wind up with "a void of even void." We may, perhaps, simply paint a picture that recomposes many different real-world elements that we have encountered. Dragons, for example, recompose the elements of reptilian scales, cyclopean size, and so on. All of which exist, but the totality of which does not. That seems fairly reasonable to me. — Theologian

While I still stand by that - so far as it goes - I accept that it is not a wholly satisfactory response to the point you were making.

Where I think I was more on point was in the observation that the world you're describing is one of monovalent truth, and in which all arguments are valid. I don't think you dispute this. Incidentally, that means my own argument form is automatically valid, and everything I'm saying is true. Therefore you're wrong.

You say:

A neat trick you could employ here is "It is objectively real, that there is no objective reality". — Shamshir

But that's not just a "neat trick:" it's a fundamental problem with your position. What you call "flux" I'm more tempted to call paradox. Except it isn't even a true paradox. If you're right, it automatically implies that you're wrong. But the fact that you're wrong does not in and of itself imply that you're right, because you could just be wrong for all the reasons I just explained. It's purely and simply a self-defeating proposition.

It's the same as saying "All truths are relative." The most obvious problem with that being that merely by the use of the universal quantifier, "All," you have explicitly stated that this is not a relative, but universal truth. Again, it's self defeating.

I think that the nub of the matter is here, when you say:

To paint something, it is required that that something exists, otherwise as I noted - it is void of void. — Shamshir

To show why this is problematic, suppose we take this all a little more literally, and think in concrete, physical terms. I don't accept that the act of pointing implies that something is there where you are pointing - except perhaps the "where" itself. So again, in a concrete, literal sense, you could just be pointing at an empty vacuum. Though you are, of course, entitled to observe that the vacuum itself could not exist without the space for it to be in, and that without that space, there is no "where" to point at.

I would say that the set of all possible propositions constitutes logical space. I would also say that assigning a value of "false" to a particular space is analogous to vacuum. You're pointing at a space where there is nothing. It's not a "void of void." I'm not entirely sure that a void of void is an incoherent or otherwise problematic concept, but even if it is, I don't think that's a problem I need to deal with here. Because we're just talking about a regular void, a vacuum if you will. A value of "False" in a well defined logical space. We're all agreed that the space exists. It's just a question of what's in it.

I began with an a priori analytic argument in which I pointed out that your position can only be self-defeating. But I would like to conclude with an a posteriori synthetic argument.

Have you ever been... dare I say it... wrong? Have you ever, for example, gotten up to go to the fridge to get a drink, thinking that there was one there, only to discover that there... wasn't?

Or gone down to the pub, thinking that they were open, only to discover that they were closed?

Because... if anything like that has ever happened to you, it would seem that you do actually need something other than a monovalent algebra with which to accurately describe the reality in which you live.

Incidentally... You ever play Mage: The Ascension?

The sun is a paisley bumblebee,
Crawling across my face.
Therefore the moon is a rhubarb tree,
Somewhere deep in space.
Therefore Shamshir’s soundly right
Therefore Shamshir’s wrong.
Therefore we all get to sing
This monovalent song.

I only do words though. Perhaps someone else could provide the music? I know there's a creative thread around here somewhere...

Actually now I do have a ditty in my head. Although I'm not entirely sure my subconscious didn't dredge it up from somewhere else. Though where, exactly, I have no idea... Plus I don't have the musical skills to write it down or do a recording I wouldn't be embarrassed to share with others...

Clearly, every belief exists as a belief. But what then is a belief? Beliefs are propositional attitudes, and most beliefs, such as a belief in God or dragons, are propositional attitudes regarding the existence of other things (as Russell famously acknowledged, we can get into difficulties when a belief is a propositional attitude regarding itself... but that's a different problem).

As for how we may conceive of that which does not objectively exist, I don't think we need to wind up with "a void of even void." We may, perhaps, simply paint a picture that recomposes many different real-world elements that we have encountered. Dragons, for example, recompose the elements of reptilian scales, cyclopean size, and so on. All of which exist, but the totality of which does not. That seems fairly reasonable to me.

To say that that we cannot believe in that which is not objectively real creates all sorts of problems; the most obvious being what do we do when two different beliefs are flatly contradictory?

Say, a belief in an all powerful, all knowing, and all benevolent God on the one hand; and a belief in pain and suffering on the other?

Another, arguably even deeper problem you have just created is that if everything that can be believed in is automatically true, then all all propositions are true. Because all propositions are true and are only true, the only logic that is applicable for describing such a world is a monovalent logic in which all propositions are true, and all inferences are therefore valid.

Therefore, according to the rules that you have set up, I can begin with any premise, know that that premise is true, and validly conclude from it that you are wrong... which will also be true.

The moon is made of green cheese
Therefore Shamshir is wrong.

QED.

Wouldn't something have to objectively exist as a prerequisite, to be believed in? — Shamshir

"The logical picture of the facts is the thought."
http://www.kfs.org/jonathan/witt/t3en.html

To "believe in something" is merely to hold a picture in one's mind. The existence of a picture in and of itself does not imply that the picture corresponds to facts outside one's own mind.

I can, after all, draw a picture of a dragon on a piece of paper. It does not follow from this that dragons objectively exist.

I think Baden is on the right track, but not quite there.

But first, an acknowledgement: "Canada," as others have observed before me, is simply a word. It's possible to define that word in ways that make the answer to the question anything from idiotically obvious (say, by geographic borders) to unutterably obtuse. I am going to try to motivate a general idea of what Canada is (if not a formal definition as such) that seems most meaningful to me.

I will start with two premises:

1. There are observable things that seem somehow related to Canada: Canadians, buildings, banknotes, geographic territories, and so on. I am going to refer to these as "Canadian things."

2. Not only are these things real; so too are the relationships between them.

Now consider an ant colony. One might say, as has been said of Canada, that no-one has ever seen an ant colony. Almost everyone has seen ants, and probably anthills too. Maybe most of us have also seen pictures of the more complex things that ants build if we happen to enjoy watching wildlife documentaries. All these we might call "ant colony things." No-one has ever seen an ant colony. Yet the concept of an "ant-colony" is clearly a useful one. It seems to organize all these individual observations into a meaningful whole.

Baden says

Canada is the type of thing that can exist by virtue of it being agreed to exist. — Baden

Our agreement (and in particular, the agreement of Canadians) that Canada exists is clearly an important organizing principle controlling how all the Canadian things (and in particular, the Canadians) interact with each other. Arguably, it is the central organizing principle. Without such a belief, they would not build the buildings that they do, respond to borders the way they do, print the banknotes that they do, and so on.

But, I would argue, there is at least one sense in which Canada exists that goes beyond a mere consensual belief. Because all of these Canadian things interacting the way they do, there is a recognizable social, economic, and geographic system that we may call "Canada."

So Canada is a real, physical thing that exists in much the same way that an atom, or a protein molecule, or an atmosphere exists: as an organized system of components. The same can be said of anything we encounter in the phenomenal world other than a fundamental particle.

Of course, like an atmosphere, the exact boundaries of Canada (in anything other than the most literal sense) are very difficult to specify. To provide an exacting and completely comprehensive definition of what Canada is would be an enormously complex exercise in synthesizing disciplines as varied as sociology and geology. But that is not what this forum is about, and I think you get the general gist of what I am saying.

As for what God is, that's easy:

I am the one true God.

No more need be said.

You are right of course that my argument crucially hangs on the segment of my post that you have quoted.

I have not read Kant first hand, and make room for the possibility that I am simply wrong about this. Kant's works have a reputation as very lengthy tomes in which every single paragraph is a dense uphill slog. The truth is I'm not quite sure I have sufficient interest for that. Sometimes it's just easier to go out on a limb and see if someone else can kindly come along and saw that limb off for me. :wink:

But...

Even if you're completely correct and Metaphysics of Morals says what you say it says, I'm not sure that isn't just a further argument against Kant's first formulation of the CI.

Doesn't Kant's whole distinction between a hypothetical imperative as a conditional command, as opposed to a categorical imperative being an unconditional command, absolutely forbid exceptions to any categorical imperative? Once you have an exception it becomes a conditional command, and therefore a hypothetical imperative.

Or, to say much the same thing in language more consistent with my OP, an imperative can't be contingently universally willed.

Meaning that, by definition, you can't ever have one CI overrule another. Once it's been overruled, even once, it's not a CI anymore.

In fact, if Kant says what you say he says, if anything this seems to be an even more fatal flaw in his ethical system than the one that I suggested in my OP. To allow one CI to overrule another is to remove the logical basis of the entire system.

Or so it seems to me.

I am only a humble student. As I said, I am quite ready for this limb to be sawn off!

:smile:

FWIW I think your fundamental problem is here:

Those circuits can’t embody the rules of logic unless meaning is applied to what they’re doing by a mind. A computer producing a syllogism on its screen is not applying logic unless we give the words a certain meaning. Its circuits are simply following the laws of physics. — AJJ

I am not saying you are wrong. I am saying you are at the level of raw assertion.

Think of certain AI characters in Star Trek, like Data or The Doctor. Do such characters have minds? Are mind and meaning emergent properties that can emerge out of certain kinds of information processing systems?

I'm not saying the answer is "yes." I am saying your position is dependent on the answer being "no," which I don't think you've shown to be the case.

Am I slipping back to that? I thought I’ve always been saying that. — AJJ

Well, you began the thread by saying that evolutionary psychology was a pseudoscience because the mind was always one step beyond a computer. Then, in response to my first post, you agreed that your argument only applied to cognitive psychology. Then, in response to a later post, you agreed that your argument lead to the conclusion that mind could never describe mind at all. Finally, in the post above, you seem to be back to saying that the mind cannot be described as a computer, but have now added that it can, perhaps, be described in terms of its final causes.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing that you modify your position over time. People who are fundamentally reasonable and willing to engage with the arguments of others tend to do that. You may have noted that at one point I modified my own position on the recursion problem. I was just flagging that your position did seem to have changed.

I’m not getting why describing a grammatical structure called recursion addresses the problem with describing what is always first-person subjective as if it’s an object. — AJJ

Because when I said:

If I understand you correctly, it seems to me that your argument leads to the conclusion that mind can never fully describe mind because mind, perforce, is always one step beyond, continuing to describe the describer, and so ad infinitum. Is this what you are saying? — Theologian

You responded:

Yes, I guess I must be. It seems impossible to make an object out of something that is always first-person subjective. — AJJ

So it seemed to me that you were saying that we were trapped in infinite recursion, and that this was a fatal flaw. My counter was that, as syntactic theory illustrates, infinite recursion is not a fatal flaw. It can in fact be handled quite adequately.

Beyond that... although I disagree with your claims, I do not want to argue that they are wrong. Primarily because you raise some quite deep issues concerning our the relationship between self, other minds, and this thing called "objective reality;" that I am still thinking through myself.

However, I am going to argue - and I don't think you would wholly disagree - that you have articulated some fairly elaborate claims that you haven't completely justified. You yourself have stated that your appeal to final causes

needs its own thread — AJJ

That aside, I also don't think you've sufficiently motivated your position that there is a fatal

problem with describing what is always first-person subjective as if it’s an object. — AJJ

.
I can see two big problems with this.

First, is a mind "always first-person subjective?" If there are other minds in the world, then those minds would seem, by definition, to be second or third person. And if we have some ideas about those other minds, why should those ideas be only subjective? If, as you claim, only things with final causes have objective reality, do minds have final causes? If so, they would seem to be more amenable to objective description than other things, not less.

Second, don't forget: a model - or a description - is never identical to the thing being modeled, and does not need to share all its properties. It only has to share enough of its properties to tell us how the thing behaves. An electron's orbit is not an equation. But it does not follow from this that an equation describing an electron's orbit is wrong. Nor that equations are fundamentally incapable of describing an electron's orbit.

I think the the view that without a subjective perceiver, logic circuits are not logic circuits but only electrical currents is also problematic. Many philosophers would see the property of being logical as an emergent property that, well, emerges from the circuits when arranged in those structures that embody the rules of logic. In order to motivate your own theory, you need to show that they are wrong.

And of course, if they are wrong, you might also be prevailed upon to give your own account of where minds themselves come from, since minds have also been suggested to be emergent properties that come into existence in much the same way.

Also, let's not forget: while you are now slipping back to saying that a mind cannot be a computer because a computer is only a computer when perceived as such by a mind, there are problems with that too. As I observed before, computers can, and have been defined in other ways. The mathematical model that defines a Turing machine, for example, makes no reference to the operator. But far more seriously and fundamentally, when I said that:

it seems to me that your argument leads to the conclusion that mind can never fully describe mind because mind, perforce, is always one step beyond, continuing to describe the describer, and so ad infinitum. Is this what you are saying? — Theologian

You yourself acknowledged

Yes, I guess I must be. — AJJ

Thus, even if you are right and the mind cannot be modeled as a computer, that's insufficient to justify what you yourself have now stated to be your position: that a mind can never describe another mind, period.

So as I said: I am not arguing that you are wrong. But I am saying that you wish to persevere with this position, you face some very serious problems that remain unaddressed.

Actually, one last post...

Two points:

1. I don't think the recursion problem is the fatal flaw you see it as. You see, I think you're thinking in these terms...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZN2eoAPCwY

When really, this might be more enlightening:

https://www.slideshare.net/AsifAliRaza/recursion-37090597

The key point being, infinite recursion can be described, just so long as it has some kind of structure.

2. Regarding your most recent claim, that final cause is what allows things to have objective reality, I think you have two quite heavy burdens of proof to meet:

2.1 Given the general skepticism with which science regards final cause, I think the onus is on you to show that anything has final cause.

2.2 Even if you believe final causes exist, why is it that final causes give things objective existence? You have provided no argument to support this claim.

I'm actually getting a bit sleepy. Will respond tomorrow. Or possibly later today, depending on where you are in the world.

Night all.

I'll get back to you on recursion shortly. For now, though, I'd like to examine this:

I think that illustrates that whatever it is you’re describing is observer-relative. A calculator to an adult is device for making mathematical computations; to a child it’ll more likely be a toy. I still say that in and of itself it’s neither. — AJJ

Are you saying that literally all descriptions are observer relative?

Do you think that there is an objective reality? Do you think it is describable?

Ugh... I think I forgot to "reply" to you when I responded above. I post this so you'll get a notification.

My apologies. I'm new here. :roll:

PS If I understand you correctly, it seems to me that your argument leads to the conclusion that mind can never fully describe mind because mind, perforce, is always one step beyond, continuing to describe the describer, and so ad infinitum. Is this what you are saying?

That something can be accurately described by information processing theory doesn’t change the fact that, in an of itself, it isn’t actually what you’re describing it as. — AJJ

How would you feel about the position that yes, it does mean that it is what you're describing it as; it just doesn't mean that it can't be other things as well?

Every concept you use is derived from the mind, so it remains that step beyond when you attempt to describe it in the same way. — AJJ

This argument of your own seems to me to lead to the conclusion that no concept can ever describe the mind; or at least, cannot do so fully. You may wish to comment on that. I am currently re-considering my own views on the recursion problem.

I would try to resolve the issues here as follows:

1. Evolutionary psychology is the attempt to explain what are regarded as psychological phenomena by means of evolutionary theory. For example, if the common definition of psychology as "the science of behavior" is accepted, then the fact that humans don't (typically) kill and eat our own young may be explained by the enormous evolutionary disadvantages of this practice.

2. The cognitive paradigm attempts to explain behavior as the product of an information processing machine.

3. These two paradigms are by no means mutually exclusive. Since the cognitive paradigm is currently the dominant paradigm in psychology, the bulk of contemporary evolutionary psychology takes place within a cognitive framework.

4. However, there is no reason why evolutionary psychology has to be cognitive. For example, the illustration I gave in point (1) above about us not eating our own young made no reference to any information processing. You can have a behaviorist (or psychoanalytic, or take your pick) evolutionary psychology just as easily.

5. Therefore, the argument of the OP is, if anything, purely an argument against cognitive psychology. So now we are left with the problem of deciding whether it is a good argument against cognitive psychology. Which brings us to...

6. We all know definitions are often highly contentious intellectual battlegrounds, and that the broadest and most basic concepts are often the most difficult to define. On a common sense level, it's obvious what is and is not alive. But when we bore down to try to achieve a truly rigorous definition of life, it's anything but easy. It's genuinely very challenging to say exactly what makes something alive; and thus, what constitutes "biology."

We see this in virtually every field. Hence the psychologist Boring's (yes, that was really his name) quip that "intelligence is what intelligence tests test."

What is life? What is intelligence? What is a computer? These are genuinely difficult terms to define. I can't help but think of Socrates' famous elenchus method.

7. So while the OP is perfectly correct that, given the definition stated, we are trapped in an infinite loop, similar to Plato's infamous "third man" problem, in which we are always one step away...

8. ...this could just as easily be taken as indicative of a problem with the definition as a problem with cognitive psychology. I could just as easily say that a computer is anything that is accurately described by information processing theory. For example, the logic circuits in an iPhone continue to function as logic circuits regardless of how I regard them, or even whether I exist at all.

Or, for example:

https://www.techopedia.com/definition/4607/computer

And of course, the real point of cognitive psychology is that... yes, our minds, brains, and behavior are accurately (to some acceptable degree of accuracy, anyway) described by information processing theory. Not that humans are in every respect identical to the computational devices we design and build.

Thus, I do not find the OP's argument a compelling one.

[Edited quite a few times to correct the odd slip and clarify a few things here and there.]

Hmm... will have to look into this. Cheers.

Alternatively, I might just start a thread on the subject, go out on a limb, and see if anyone can saw me off! =P

Incidentally, I have a question for you that I've been thinking about. If you're a big fan of Wittgenstein, I imagine you have more than a passing acquaintance with the philosophy of language. My question is, to what extent has that sub-discipline dealt with the relationship between syntax and logic?

I ask because it seems to me that important philosophical arguments are often ultimately points of grammar.

Which could well be a thread in itself!

Why thank you! I'll try not to disappoint! :wink:

So far my philosophical studies are quite limited. I did Philosophy of Psychology (really a philosophy of mind course) and Formal Logic in my undergraduate degree. And I recently finished first year philosophy as part of my current degree (two units down, two HD's - Yay me! :razz: ). But... HD's or not, as you might expect, there are still huge gaps in my knowledge of the discipline as a whole.

Aside from him being a beery old swine, you mean?

I'm interested, but honestly, I don't know enough to say. I have thought of tackling the Tractatus at some point.

A bunch of stuff.

I did an undergraduate major in psych way back when. I discovered Skinner and have long considered myself a methodological behaviorist, unfashionable though that may be. I spent many essays fruitlessly attempting to explain to my lecturers why they were wrong.

Though to be honest I found Walden Two (which I started but did not finish) unintentionally hilarious. Sorry. :sad: I always think the best and clearest point of entry into Skinner's work is his 1950 paper "Are Theories of Learning Necessary?"; especially the first and final sections. You don't really need to read the middle part unless you're interested in the technical details of operant conditioning.

More recently I started a philosophy degree out of interest. The "Favorite Philosophers" you'll find on my profile reflect the fact that I think it's still far too soon for me to meaningfully choose any actual philosophers. The ones I feel most drawn to (like Camus) are still people I know only (or primarily) at second hand.

There's a thread on whether the "A" theory of time means time travel is impossible. I have some ideas on that question myself, so I've been thinking of joining that.

There are also a bunch of ideas I have in various states of readiness for posting. These are primarily my own reactions to the stuff I've been taught in my coursework, and so range from Kantian deontology to logical fatalism.

But... I'm still getting the hang of this place.

Ooh... You got me there!

I had to think for a few seconds before that penny dropped! :wink:

I'm tempted to add "In all the wrong places."

But hey, this is only my seventh post. So what would I know?

So far the only person here having a tantrum is you, S.

This is my first post. Hi Everyone.
I was drawn to this thread partly because of the moniker of the original poster (amazing movie - or at least, it was before George Lucas completely lost the plot and... well, I guess that's off-topic). But also because it seemed like a fairly on-topic place to post one of my main concerns about joining.
Specifically, I am wondering about this site's privacy policy. I was unable to find one. I'm also wondering if PlushForums gets my data as a result of me posting here.