3. If some evidence is not improbable under A but very improbable under B, then that evidence provides strong evidence for A. — SwampMan

To be clear, premise 3 is the only one you want to discuss here. Is that correct? I have some issues with the first two premises, but that's not what we're discussing.

Let's simplify. I have a die with six sides. On five sides there are single pips. On the sixth there are two pips. I'm going to roll the die and ask you to bet on what number will come up. What do you choose?

Let's change that a little to make it more comparable to your situation. I roll the same die but hide it under a cup so you can't see the result. Is there "strong evidence" that there is a single pip on the side of the die facing up?

So - is a high probability the same as evidence? I want to say "no" but I'm not sure I can justify that.

I am looking for some strategies to appeal to why multiple deaths are worse than one (specifically in the realm of Taurek cases). I am hoping to find methods to make this claim that do a little more than just repeat consequentialist beliefs. — Camille

Isn't the answer straight-forward and obvious? Isn't it clear that five deaths are worse than one death? It has nothing to do with weighing one person's life against other's. What if it were 10 to 1. 100 to 1. 10,000 to 1. There's a line somewhere when it becomes silly to argue it doesn't matter. I don't think there should be any moral quandary with 5 to 1 - five deaths is worse than one.

Another question - Where would I draw the line if the one person in question was my daughter?

Welcome to the forum.

He was arguing that he could not make sense of it. — Constance

He wrote that causation is "...a relic of a bygone age, surviving, like the monarchy, only because it is erroneously supposed to do no harm."

Intuition is far from common sense. — Constance

I am a strong believer that intuition and introspection are valid, powerful, means of gaining knowledge and understanding. But, in the end, their results are still subject to the scrutiny of observation, experimentation, and reason. When you give intuition primacy over those factors, you've left philosophy and crossed the border into the bleak wasteland of voodooism, mysticism, and Republicanism.

I've had my say. You can have the last word if you'd like.

As previously, you have provided a speculative, unsupported, and far-fetched idea with no evidence to back it up. It is not science, it's pseudo-science. I won't poke my head into your thread again.

They didn't have enough of this knowledge. Logical conclusion: their refusal is unwarrented. — EugeneW

I'm done. Unless someone pulls up one of my previous posts for criticism again without attribution.

Every happening, on the other hand, is made up from a cause and effect, as they are spread in spacetime. — EugeneW

And I say "no." And you say "it's obvious." And I say, "no, it's not obvious." You are arguing that cause is real and obvious. My only argument is that it is not obvious. We're not getting anywhere with this.

Every effect has a cause. — EugeneW

That's a bit muddled. Do you mean that every event has a cause? If so, then no, not necessarily. If you don't want to argue, then don't contradict things I write.

It's all there is to logically conclude. — EugeneW

You haven't provided any logical argument. As I noted, "it's obvious" is no argument at all.

But the idea is not what is discussed here. — Constance

You brought up my previous post and were dismissive.:

Someone argued that causality was debatable because Bertrand Russell wrote a paper saying so. Russell was actually waying we can't make sense of causality, but he was not contradicting the basic intuition that a spontaneous cause is impossible. I wonder how this went with him. Does he understand that a spontaneous cause is apodictically impossible. — Constance

I was that someone. So I responded and it is exactly the idea that is being discussed here. And, by the way, yes Russell was exactly contradicting the basic intuition that a spontaneous cause is impossible.

What makes causality so intractable to analysis is that it is intuitive, and not empirical, and such things are not reducible. — Constance

So, is it your position that your intuition trumps reason? Common sense must be right? I know the feeling you are talking about. When someone says that x caused y, I know what they mean. I've thought about that a lot and come to the conclusion that, except in a few very simple situations, it just doesn't work.

Which is obvious nonsense, — EugeneW

[condescension] Let me explain this to you. Just saying "it's self-evident", "it's obvious", "it's a priori knowledge", "it's nonsense", or "it's undeniable" is not an argument.[/condescension]

had he had some knowledge of physics. The problem in physics is why cause precedes effect.. — EugeneW

He actually made his arguments based on and with reference to his understanding of modern physics at the time. Take a look at his argument - "On the Notion of Cause," 1912. I actually don't find that part of his argument especially convincing. I focus more on the fact that I think causation is a metaphysical entity. As with all metaphysics, it is neither true nor false, only more or less useful. Let's not go any further into it right now. The point I'm trying to make is that it is very much not obvious that things are caused. It's not obvious to me. It wasn't obvious to Russell. It wasn't obvious to R.G. Collingwood in 1943. We're not the only ones.

he was not contradicting the basic intuition that a spontaneous cause is impossible. — Constance

He went further. He said the idea of cause in physics is meaningless.

I suppose it is true, that women need love. Do you think that men and women have the same needs? — chiknsld

I'm talking about loving something outside themselves. I love lots of things - reading, writing, science - especially writing. I am most myself when I am thinking and trying to explain myself to others. It fills me with pleasure and it gave me a career that allowed me to make a decent living and do something worthwhile.

Are you referring to women? — chiknsld

I'm referring to everyone.

Great Books? I don't know. I'm not sure it matters as long as you teach them to think well. How to write. To love reading, if that's possible. Math and science, as needed for practical life, but also as a way of understanding the world. History and geography so they know where they fit in the world. Wood shop so they know how to work with their hands. What we used to call "home economics" so they know how to get along in the world - also cook and sew on a button. One of the most useful courses I took was typing. I'm using it now.

Good teachers matter more than specific curriculum. I still remember the best teacher I ever had, Mrs. Koepcke, my 11th grade English teacher. I still feel gratitude for what she gave me.

Teach them to love something, something that is theirs and they'll have for the rest of their lives.

one cannot imagine a spontaneous effect. — Constance

I can.

But to just sit an imagine an object moving by itself, in good faith, it is clear as anything can be: impossible. — Constance

No.

What if someone theorized in a way that violated the principle of causality? Putting aside that someone has in fact done this, ask your self how well this sits with your understanding. It is a blatant absurdity, apodictically impossible. — Constance

In 1912, Bertrand Russell wrote "On the Notion of Cause" in which he makes the argument that causation is not a useful way of thinking about the world. In 1943, R.G. Collingwood wrote "An Essay on Metaphysics" in which he wrote something similar. My point? It is not "absurdity" to deny the principle of causality.

I think that goes to show that you and I think too differently about the world for this to be a fruitful discussion.

To know at all is to take up the world AS this knowledge claim is expressed. Taken APART from the knowledge claim, pure metaphysics. The cup on the table, e.g. is qua cup, a cup, but qua a palpable presence not a cup at all. — Constance

I don't know what this means. More evidence you and I do not have the language to talk to each other about this.

As I see it, to bend absolutely requires a medium in which a thing can bend. — Constance

People used to think that there must be a luminiferous aether because they thought that electromagnetic waves had to have a medium to propagate through. Turns out they were wrong. I don't see how your inability to conceive of space bending without any outside space to bend in is any different.

I think quantum physicists "doubt" quantum mechanics, meaning they really don't understand it because it itself is not clear...yet. — Constance

I don't think that any reputable physicist doubts quantum mechanics at all. They may argue about the interpretation, but I think that is a metaphysical argument, not a scientific one. Fact is, it works. As they say, shut up and calculate. It doesn't make any difference if you can understand why. Science isn't about understanding why things happen, it's about understanding how things happen. Your "...yet" is a bit too cute for my taste. Most physicists don't think further study will make QM any less counterintuitive. The world is not obligated to arrange itself in a way that fits into your way of thinking about it. You can't change the world, but you can change your thinking.

They presuppose space. Space bending is like saying logic implying: to imply is to USE logic. It cannot be its own presupposition. — Constance

I'll say this one more time, then I promise I won't say it again - You've fallen into the same trap of mistaking the words for the world that you identify in the OP.

The curvature of space. Is this an idea that makes sense, not as it is theorized about, but as a singular concept? — Constance

Yes.

What do you do with theory that explains things well, but is radically counterintuitive? — Constance

Science is all about finding out situations where our intuition is wrong. Intuition doesn't come from the great beyond, it can be changed by experience and understanding. Do you also doubt special relativity and quantum mechanics? Those theories are certainly counterintuitive.

Is it wrong to think empirical science dis really not about the actualities lie before us. After all, the actual world is not a quantified presence; language and logic make it so; — Constance

If this is true, and I think it is, why can't spacetime bend?

isn't science's claims about being about the world a hidden reification of logic? — Constance

Everything put into language is a reification of something. Every word is reification. Reification and metaphor, that's all there is. I guess reification is the same thing as metaphor.

Space is real, and I don't think space bending is a metaphor. — Constance

Seems to me, most ideas refer back, or at least originally referred back, to something at human scale. That certainly makes sense with "space." Of course, there's always been space - the three-dimensional volume in a room, etc. I wonder if the development of the idea of space was changed by the development of Cartesian geometry. It certainly seems like it would have been as people learned that there were long distances between those bright things up in the sky. Science and science fiction probably changed the meaning of the word even more. General relatively just continued those changes and added another dimension. So, no. Space is not real, if by that you mean that it hasn't changed and can't change again.

And of course space bending is a metaphor. People can bend a tree branch or a piece of metal, but you can't bend air. Until, suddenly, you can.

So, I say, "He is an animal!" and the sense of it depends on the person in question and animals being both familiar. — Constance

It doesn't make any difference who the person in question is, if it's male, he is an animal. Sorry, a little cute.

As I said, I think you are caught up in the same paradox creation that you started out writing about.

The point? It is a diffuse point, sort of bound up in the ideas presented, each one in its own right a challenge, but the general point would be that the perversity extends from the thinking that logic can serve as a structured way to speak about the actual world. — Constance

I think that Zeno's arrow paradox and performative contradictions, a term I hadn't heard before, are examples of what we call paradoxes. I agree they arise from a misguided attempt to apply rigorous logic inappropriately. I think that's also true about seeming contradictions that come up when trying to talk God into a corner and yell "Gotcha!"

General relativity is something different. GR is a theory, a model, which very effectively predicts the behavior of certain aspects of the world. Talking about space bending is a metaphor that helps people picture and understand what is happening. GR redefined what "space" means. I don't see it as a paradox at all. If you were talking about the different interpretations of quantum mechanics, I would be more likely to agree with you.

Unless I've misunderstood what your trying to say, this:

Einstein's space time: Space bending?? Nonsense. The concept of bending presupposes space. I am not a physicist, but it is an analytic certainty that if something bends, it must bend in a medium which allows things to bend IN it. — Constance

is a good example of this:

a perverse belief in a logically structured world can generate a false sense of paradox. — Constance

Or is that your point?

I think subjects as well as arguments can be reasonable as well as unreasonable. For an atheist (is it me or is there unusual much activity abouts gods?) theism is unreasonable. Close to madness even. Is madness reasonable? — EugeneW

Given that you and I are reasonable people, does that mean there are some subjects we should not be able to talk about? That doesn't make sense to me.

"The argument" can be very unreasonable though... — EugeneW

Yes. My point is that the term "reasonable" can apply to arguments but not to subjects.

I'm not sure they would agree. But even if they did, it's pretty easy to point to what is traditionally (and commonly) used as examples of what a "philosopher" is. I don't think that tells us much — Xtrix

I laid out what I see as the requirements for being a philosopher. The people I listed all met those requirements. My point was to show that my set of criteria will identify people who we normally think of as philosophers. That helps show that my definition is consistent with everyday usage.

Before the word "philosopher" was even coined, what was happening? Was there no "philosophy"? I don't think so. I think Parmenides was as much deserving of the label "philosopher" as anyone. — Xtrix

I don't see how this relates to the things I've written.

Every human being can think; not every human being is a thinker.

[Also, it may be useful in an everyday sense -- but certainly not in a technical sense. So while I find nothing wrong with "work" as a useful word in everyday life, that itself doesn't make it useful in physics (where that string of letters takes on a completely different role, and is given a technical meaning).] — Xtrix

Sorry, you lost me.

I rank/rate creativity highly, right up there with reason & knowledge. The reason it seems to have dropped out of philosophical discourse is because we're still in the early stages. Nevertheless parallel processing has been/is/will be done with amazing results. There should be another branch of philosophy specifically developed to beautify philosophy. Compare an automobile from the 1890s to one in 2022. — Agent Smith

I had a thought that I think we both can agree is a good one. I plan to avoid discussions with you in the future.

Sometimes the word used is epistemic such as epistemic priviliege (where one is privilieged with a unique epistemic set, or way to deal with reality, based on your upbringing (or based on ontological events that happened in your life vs epistemic ones which you may have participated in epistemically but not actually such as watching a horror movie or waving back at someone who was not waving at you)). — Shwah

I'm still lost. I don't see what this has to do with causation or creation.

I sometimes do [fail]
— T Clark

That's all that matters, no? — Agent Smith

As I said, if I fail, criticize me for my failure, as I am criticizing you for yours.

Creativity? Irrationalism? — Agent Smith

Are you proposing these as standards by which philosophical arguments should be judged?

Is Taoism (one of your pet subjects) reason(able)? — Agent Smith

Subjects aren't reasonable, arguments are. I think my discussions about Taoism have been reasonable. As I'll say again, if you find some that aren't, criticize them.

Just to make sure I've got this right. Requiring arguments based on knowledge and reason rather than prejudice is setting the bar too high. Is that correct? Your directness is refreshing. I can't think of anything else of value to add in response
— T Clark

Beware of adopting principles which when applied to yourself will only get you an F-. — Agent Smith

I'm willing to be judged by that standard. When I fail to meet them, and I sometimes do, I deserve criticism. Have at it.

Epistemological is just a way we try to order things — Shwah

Epistemology is the study of how we know things. I'm confused by the way you're using the word.

There's a particular order where the ontological nature of an object informs what epistemic standards can be used to understand it (such as what eyes or hands will "know" about a blade of grass under a running river). This order is asymmetric where the "belief, degree of knowledge, hunger-inducement the idea may make you etc" have no impact on the ontological position in question (say quantum mechanics or theism etc). — Shwah

Sorry, I'm lost.

So for emergent computing they try to develop a valid structure for dealing with objects they propose exist (such as birds and them turning into flocks) and formally this fails because the game of life deals with completely different units (just dots in general I suppose). — Shwah

What flocking birds and the cells of cellular automata have in common is that changes in the behavior of cells or birds are based on simple rules about how they react to the behavior of adjacent cells or birds.

I endorse arguments based on knowledge and reason rather than prejudice.
— T Clark

That's setting the bar too high in my opinion and your "website" will get fewer, even though high quality, hits if you catch my drift. Also you'll miss out on what a fresh pair of eyes can provide in terms of novel insights into a problem, old and new. Just a thought, that's all. — Agent Smith

Just to make sure I've got this right. Requiring arguments based on knowledge and reason rather than prejudice is setting the bar too high. Is that correct? Your directness is refreshing. I can't think of anything else of value to add in response.

Yeah that's fair. I think for me causation doesn't inherently need time in order to speak about cause. To me cause is solely the "why" something "is" so the basis is a type of predication of the is. This definition and generalization allows an inclusion of math/logical problems such as 1+1=2. If we include time then we can't include universals and then we have no means to speak about "what caused math" which is important for the "foundations of mathematics" etc. — Shwah

I think you've broadened the definition of the words "causation" and "creation" to the point where they've lost their meaning. If you look at definitions of causation, they almost always focus on the temporal sequence of two events. To me, a temporal sequence and a logical sequence are completely different things. You are comparing one spherical, brightly colored fruit that is used to make juice that children like to drink with another, completely different, brightly colored fruit that is used to make juice that children like to drink.

What are some good conceptions of causation in principles or full narratives that you prefer? — Shwah

As I said, I don't think the idea of causation is a very useful one for any but the simplest situations. From my reading, It seems that the idea of cause really arose in relation to actions initiated by people and that the use of the term for events that don't involve people is a relatively more recent affair. Please don't ask me to defend that idea right now, but I think it's important.

game of life — Shwah

I find the Game of Life, cellular automata, fascinating.

It creates multiple shapes etc and people have tried to map what shapes are created (when birds appear and what happens after) and it seems impossible but the issue is they're establishing an epistemological fraking of the code ("birds") then trying to create patterns off that when the code doesn't compute by that so epistemologically emergentism seems to appear but ontologically this isn't the case. — Shwah

Sorry. I don't understand, especially the underlined part.

The first is creatio ex nihilo and I find issues with that when you apply it as a full causation narrative as we can trace objects back (say where an apple just came from) without any reference to nothing. — Shwah

But that's really the problem for me. Except in the very simplest situations we can't trace events back very far. When we can, we find that there are multiple causes for almost everything. There's a word for it - overdetermination. I'm working, slowly, on a thread to discuss whether causation is a useful way of understanding how things work.

Emergentism is a causation narrative that means the new object in succession has traits distinct from the prior object(s) which it emerges from. It is usually justified by statistical mechanics, among other probability-based fields. I've never seen an ontological example of emergentism just epistemological configurations. — Shwah

Emergentism isn't really about causation, is it? It's not that chemistry causes biology, it's that what we call biological phenomena are consistent with chemical principles. Please explain what you mean by an epistemological configuration of emergentism.

Emanationism is where objects have all their meaning and ontology from an object they are a "part of". For instance apples emanate from a tree where so long as a tree exists, apples will be made according to the tree and the tree according to the environment etc. — Shwah

This doesn't really seem to have much to do with causation or creation either. It's about how what already exists, has already been caused, can be described.

The last one I know is successionism which is similar to emergentism except no new variables or traits are created, there's just an advancement from the preceding object in the same way as preceding that. An example is cantor's different sets of numbers. — Shwah

This seems like a traditional approach to causation. As I noted, for me it fails because the whole idea of causation is difficult to justify in most situations. This is not a radical idea. It's been on the table for more than a hundred years and is supported by established and respected philosophers and scientists.

So, how do we deal with the issue of the relationship between events and succeeding events? How do we use the past and present to predict the future? As I said, I'm working on that for myself right now.

Do you still wish to endorse religion? — Agent Smith

I don't endorse religion, I endorse arguments based on knowledge and reason rather than prejudice.

T Clark, since you seem to have gone through Angelo Cannata's link, mind sharing your insights on the matter. — Agent Smith

I don't see what more needs to be said. Your question about how and why polytheism evolved into monotheism in some, but not all, cultures has been asked by many people before. A lot of thought, research, and study has been put into it. The answers they came up with are plausible and documented.

The primary religions of the most populous countries, India and China, are still polytheistic.

Regardless— the term is fairly meaningless anyway. What most people signify with “philosopher” is, in my view, already worthless. So there’s little to “devalue” — unless you accept the common usage. — Xtrix

I don't agree. "Philosopher" is a good name for what Aristotle, Plato, Russell, Wittgenstein, and all those other guys are. It's a useful term.

Why is my argument "pitiful", "lame", and "dumbass"? Justify your statement, if you can that is — Agent Smith

@Angelo Cannata provided clear, plausible, documented evidence that your interpretation of the change from polytheism to monotheism is not correct. Your response? "That's just opinion." Then you went on with your half-baked theory that, coincidentally, just happens to work well with your knee-jerk atheism.

I'm curious, what's your argument for/against monotheism? — Agent Smith

I don't have an argument for or against monotheism. It's not something I have an opinion about. I do have an opinion about irrational arguments for religious bigotry.

Come on AS, Angelo has presented convincing documentation for his position. You are being willfully argumentative and providing no evidence. As Stephen Hawking once said "Fax iz fax."
— T Clark

@Angelo Cannata

Please read my reply to Shwah (vide supra). — Agent Smith

This is just about the most pitiful, lame argument I've seen since being on the forum, and that's saying a lot. You should be ashamed. You're lucky they don't ban people for dumbass arguments.

It is an opinion based on research, studies, archaelogy, criticism, done by scholars all over the world.. As such, it helps for further research. What historical elements is your hypothesis based on? — Angelo Cannata

Your explanation seems like a plausible one. I did check, and you're right. There the consensus seems to be that it was a social and cultural movement that took place over hundreds of years.

That's an opinion. What isn't, oui? — Agent Smith

It's not, as you suppose, a hypothesis. It's a mathematical pattern: from many to one to...zilch/nada/zip/sifr/zero/cipher! — Agent Smith

Come on AS, Angelo has presented convincing documentation for his position. You are being willfully argumentative and providing no evidence. As Stephen Hawking once said "Fax iz fax."

you're "doing" philosophy. For that moment, you're a philosopher. — Xtrix

If that were true, it would completely devalue what calling someone a philosopher signifies. It would become meaningless. If you and I are philosophers, then no one is.

Can one buy their way in? — EugeneW

Sure. There are lots of bad engineers, but they're still engineers. Ditto doctors, butchers, elephant trainers, Presidents of the United States.

So for example, when one says "I see that violence is bad", "I see your comments are fair". — KantDane21

I don't think it's a figure of speech at all. It's just one of the usages allowed by the definition of the word "see." From Merriam Webster:

transitive verb
1a: to perceive by the eye
b: to perceive or detect as if by sight
2a: to be aware of : RECOGNIZE
sees only our faults
b: to imagine as a possibility : SUPPOSE
couldn't see him as a crook
c: to form a mental picture of : VISUALIZE
can still see her as she was years ago
d: to perceive the meaning or importance of : UNDERSTAND — Merriam-Webster