Or, will you get home and find it's already this time next year...?

I'm still waiting for Derren to come on the radio and demonstrate that the whole of the last few years has been a massive trick. "Did you all really believe that Donald Trump could become president of the US and then preside over a viral pandemic that's straight out the plot of at least six post apocalypse films?... Even I thought I'd gone too far on this one..." — Isaac

I'd been airing the idea that we'd snap out of it in the Lowry Theatre and it'd be 2020 with no pandemic. It seems a very him thing to do :rofl:

What would be the case if part of the information each step received was the fact that it's neighbour had been studied by the step to it's left and will be studied by the step to it's right. That doesn't defy any self-study because this still all counts as information about the previous step. If also it were to learn that the previous step learnt this about the step before that... Then let's say one of the algorithms in a step was to make a Bayesian inference about where its data came from and went to... Would it not derive the exact system you described despite being a part of that system? — Isaac

I suppose, getting quantum on yo ass, if each subsystem is an ideal state-measurer, then each would be in a state (ignore superposition) of having measured a particular state of the previous subsystem.

Subsystem 1 is in state |1>
Subsystem 2 is in state |measured |1>>
Subsystem 3 is in state |measured |2>> = |measured |measured 1>>

and so on. But even in this ideal situation, all you really get at the end is something equivalent to the state of the first subsystem. You'd still need to report on that somehow which is supposed to be subsystem 2's job.

And that's the point really. If subsystem 2 is doing anything other than reporting on the state of 1, that needs reporting somehow. If it's doing two things, it's really two subsystems, one of which is reporting on itself which it can't because a subsystem is still a system (recursion).

The map idea is the closest, since it reports on the function of the system as a whole, which is how cacheing works anyway.

Wow! I was spot on with the term "masturbation". You've been busy while I slept. (When we both have time, I'll explain time zones to you. We'll work our way up to it, don't worry, but fair warning: it involves the Earth being a spheroid, rather than being flat.)

Just answer the question. — Bartricks

You can always tell the weakest point of someone's argument from how much effort they put into avoiding that point, and you went from 0 to 60 in a second to avoid this one :rofl: But I'm seeing a similarity between you and 3017amen, in that you both think that responding to questions with more energetic, not very relevant questions is a defense. Which it is in a way, if you're uninterested in philosophy.

The question doesn't require any gymnastics of epistemology. 'Omniscient' doesn't refer to belief generally, rather to knowledge. An omniscient being has at their disposal the set of all knowledge. Whatever else it contains (viz your desperate "look elsewhere" fuckaboutery), it contains any knowledge about what God is going to do with it, and why, and what the outcome will be.

If e.g. he chooses to make a mistake, or to become less than God in order to make a mistake, then however you rationalise him doing that, he must have prior knowledge of future him doing that.

Or, to put it another way, God might be allowed false beliefs, but if he doesn't know which of his beliefs are true and which are false, which of his beliefs are justified and which unjustified, then he doesn't have all knowledge -- he doesn't have knowledge about his knowledge -- in which case he is not omniscient.

Some other general points... JTP cannot hold for an omniscient being. For a belief to be justifiable, it must also be potentially unjustifiable, i.e. the believer (and this might go over your head, sorry) must have the potential to doubt her belief in order for it to be justifiable. An omniscient being already has all knowledge: that knowledge cannot be doubted and therefore cannot be justified since it is already, by definition, knowledge (whatever other beliefs the omniscient being might have). So an omniscient being's knowledge is knowledge according to different criteria than a mere ignorant human like yourself. Man makes God in his image though, what!

So, can I presume that you also understand that this means possessing all knowledge is not equivalent to possessing all true beliefs? — Bartricks

It's irrelevant whether I agree with a particular epistemology or not, I'm always happy to tackle the argument on its arguer's own terms. My question concerned specifically knowledge, the totality of which is the criterion of omniscience. Equivocating over belief will not aid you in answering the question, which is presumably why you're so affronted at being asked it.

You don't seem to understand the difference between a true belief and knowledge. Think. — Bartricks

I understand the relationship between them. I was asking a very targeted question for which, like everyone else defending a position of magical nonsense, your response is evasion over clarification or defence. If you calm down and take the the time to absorb the question, and not just cling desperately and angrily to the fact that you papered over it, it would be interesting to discuss it, but horses, water, etc.

I am drunk again. We were supposed to be going to see Derren Brown tonight. My girlfriend bought me the tickets for my birthday last year but it was cancelled due to Covid. She got etickets a few months back for a replacement, tonight she said. So I booked a table for food and cocktails before the show. Turned out, it's this date next year.

Well played, Derren. Well played.

Anyway, my response will have to wait til tomorrow as we had nothing to do but drink more cocktails.

It doesn't take a scientist to understand metaphysics.. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well that's true. And apparently it takes more than a metaphysician to recognise science. I guess we all have our niches, though I'm not sure what you're adding.

The philosophical 'puzzle' only arises when we expect that lay story to relate in some intrinsic way to what we actually find out in neuroscience and cognitive science. I mean, why would it, it's just a story. — Isaac

Yes, I completely agree with this but it also makes me think we're speaking at cross purposes. You're talking about some rationalisation of our experiences, I think, either some innate compulsion to narrate (which I believe in, perhaps not as a compulsion but a function) or some conscious rationalisation along those lines.

I was talking more about what precedes that: System A*'s lack of knowledge about itself or the causes of System A's outputs. Yes, it's undoubtedly a cause of rationalisations, of narrative-building, but the absence of information (expressed by those you disapprove of as the immediacy of qualia) are examinable. What we don't know about our phenomenology invites either curiosity or rationalisation.

Okay, I'm getting the impression this is masturbation, not philosophy. Fill yer boots!

Why do you think making a mistake requires a false belief ? — Hello Human

Mistakes are a subclass of false beliefs.

I literally - literally - argued carefully that this is not so. Did you read the OP at all? I feel like I am presenting arguments at an old people's home.

Read. The. OP. — Bartricks

I did. I'm explaining politely why it's bullshit. You didn't argue carefully, you paved over cracks. Yes, God might choose to become an error-prone, lesser being. But he'd still have to know what error he's choosing to make before he becomes so. Engage brain, then only when that fails resort to twattery.

And if he assumed the world could not be understood by human minds, then he wouldn't try day after day to do so. — Olivier5

We're getting off track, but the universe needn't be completely understandable. Understandable theories like thermodynamics, chemistry, etc. turn out to be approximations to theories much harder to comprehend.

The problem is professional philosophers invented and defined these fallacies and academic logic.

The answer is found outside academic philosophy. — Protagoras

You mean the answer is fallacious? Yes, that seems likely.

What more really needs to be said ...
I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
— Stephen Roberts?
In other words: Hitchens' Razor. — 180 Proof

Yes, the final relevant word for me too. The rest is largely head-meets-wall masochism.

First, for God to have a false belief, he cannot do so in ignorance of its falsity (condition of omniscience). He knows it's a false belief, therefore he cannot believe it: it makes no sense to claim to believe something and hold that it is a false belief -- such a God would be lacking in reasoning power which he supposedly is not (condition of omnipotence).

And if he chose to cease to be God in order to make a mistake, it cannot be a mistake since he chose to alter his condition in order to make it, i.e. it was intended.

More precisely, scientists operate on the assumption of an objectively real physical universe, understandable by human minds. — Olivier5

That's probably true more often than not, and not unreasonably so. There's no obvious reason, other than the anthropic principle, that as much of the universe is amenable to human reason as is.

But I for one don't assume that everything is necessarily comprehendible to human minds. In fact I think we're hitting that limit already, as more and more AI is used to make experimental predictions. Rather, we're fortunate that the elementary character of reality is that it obeys comprehendible rules on a statistical level.

Indeed, but this seems to apply only to the totality of the system, which I didn't think was ever in question. If a system is made of subsystem A and subsystem A* (responsible for examining the workings of subsystem A) then 'the system' is examining itself. The fact that it's not examining the totality of itself doesn't remove from the fact that it is examining itself. — Isaac

Yes, this is fine and, I think, more or less what the brain is doing anyway, right? I was just saying I got what Mww was talking about. And it is pertinent. For instance, System A* can report on at least some of System A but not itself, which seems to describe the mystery of the mind quite nicely. Pretty much everything we can point at is present and correct for animals with much smaller forebrains and likely not what we'd think of as conscious. We're aware that something more is going on with us but it's very difficult to put a finger on, hence the evasive vagaries of the language used ("what it is like" etc.).

Another possibility: you could have say a ring of subsystems each examining the system on the left. Every subsystem will be examined, but none has a picture of the whole, nor can you get any information out of it without introducing another subsystem which isn't being examined.

Anyway, I think what Mww is saying is that the brain can't report on its entire state, which is true. Bits of the brain can examine other bits, but the whole is made up of blind spots as much as insight.

A separate point here, but perhaps one to get into when I've fully understood your objections — Isaac

No objections dude, just weighing in. Didn't mean to confuse matters more.

Actually, many people like myself choose to help others sometimes only because we feel that this would result in getting more people to help us in the future. Of course, we might often disguise this as genuine altruism and it’s hard to distinguish between the two a lot of times. I think we have actually evolved to be altruistic in part because we expect reciprocation. Though, I do think some people are evolved to be directly altruistic. Still, I think there are definitely cases where someone is motivated to be altruistic for selfish reasons. — TheHedoMinimalist

You can rationally expect reciprocity, yes, and reciprocity was even the reason altruism was selected for, but you can't evolve a drive toward reciprocity in the same way to you can't evolve to have more children (an outcome) but you can evolve e.g. higher libido (a drive). Evolving an outcome doesn't make any sense.

Egoistic hedonism is the view that one should make themselves feel as good as possible in the long run(at least if we’re talking about prudential egoistic hedonism rather than what’s known as folk hedonism which is the stereotypical form of hedonism. You can read about that distinction in philosophy encyclopedia entries on hedonism). — TheHedoMinimalist

Okay, I don't know about prudential egoistic hedonism, that's a new one to me, but helping others for a hit of oxytocin is not prudent long-term in and of itself. Selflessness is costly. Taking the act in itself, it generally ought to incur more pain than pleasure. I give you my favourite bear because you have cancer. I get a nice hit of oxytocin for a short while, and am short a bear forever. I don't give you my favourite bear, and I feel guilt for a bit but enjoy the bear forever.

What makes reciprocal altruism work is closer to hedonistic utilitarianism (maximising happiness for all involved) but really is about perpetuating my genome (which is incapable of pleasure or pain, only continuing or dying out).

So yeah I can see that self-help is a subset of hedonism, but it doesn't follow that all hedonism is self-help (which I think addresses most of your post).

I don’t think that having biological instincts for altruism, egalitarianism, and empathy necessarily would give you the kind of morality that requires you to rescue a child drowning in a shallow body of water. For example, I could imagine a highly pessimistic and suicidal person who has fair amount of empathy towards others choose to ignore a drowning child because he might envy the position that this child is in. — TheHedoMinimalist

Sure, depression, stress, anxiety, fear, loneliness... There's lots of things that make us more selfish and less altruistic. Generally a social group on the brink of starvation ceases to be social, it's every individual for themselves. That doesn't counter the likelihood that our morality derives from our social biology, nor is it particularly useful to attempt to build a morality around edge cases, or one that admits every conceivable behaviour. Whatever your thoughts on what morality is, there's a bunch of people who aren't doing that, so that's a doomed exercise.

Humans are individuals. We make up a species because we have a bit more in common with each other than we do with chimpanzees, and a lot more than we do with ants, banana trees and slime mold. But each one of us has our capacities limited by our own DNA, our own characteristics, not the total or average characteristics of the species. Some people will naturally be more social than others.

Plus, as I've said, altruism is a drive, not an outcome, and it's one that's relatively easy to block. You teach a Texan boy to hate Mexicans, he's not going to feel the same pain and guilt watching his friends kick the crap out of a Mexican kid as one that isn't raised that way. Our biology can underlie our morality without it being the only thing that drives our behaviour. What makes us human is, in part, the huge amount of social biology we're packing, but we're still packing a lot of other biology too, including stuff inherited from our pre-social ancestors.

I didn't mean to derail your thread with all this evolution talk btw. I'm letting you dictate whether it's off-topic or not.

So what? You operate (at least as a default position) under the assumption that other scientists don't lie to you about this, when they say that, e.g. they ran the math again and it doesn't work. — Olivier5

It's not about lying. Scientists operate on the assumption of an objectively real physical universe, not on the assumption of non-physical minds. I'm not disagreeing that minds are important: science is phenomenological, I agree. And there are good reasons to assume that I'm not surrounded by p-zombies or stooges. However that process of knowing other minds is based on my phenomenology and their physicality, not some telepathy. (Come to think of it, how crap are non-physical minds that, free from physical constraints like localism, they depend 100% on physical means to communicate? Anyone who believes in non-physical mind must admit that theirs is dumb :rofl: ) A purely solipsistic science wouldn't be possible, and I have to know others, work with others, learn from others and hopefully one day supersede others through physical means.

There's just no obvious platform for ideal minds outside of solipsism here that I can see.

The validation you seek is from other minds. — Olivier5

But I don't have access to other minds. I have access to their physical effects.

Noticed, and for which he owes you a cocktail of your choice. — Mww

Well, I Kant say fairer than that, Maine's an extra dry vodka martini with a twist

Why not 2 types of stuff. Stuff and the information about stuff. — Cheshire

Information _about_ stuff? Because all information about any system is in the system. Any copies of the system's information are, at best, just that -- copies -- at worst, erroneous, and typically incomplete. This is why simulation theory fails for me: the most efficient way to simulate a universe is to build it.

This goes for the mind too. All the information about the brain is in the brain, but not all in the mind. The weird thing is, rather than make us doubt, this actually convinces us of things that truth be told we should really doubt.

Why yes, science is based on a dualist framework (empiricism + rationalism), so a logical form of scientism or physicalism would include the mind as the central place where science happens. — Olivier5

Does it happen in the mind, though? Yes, I see the results of the experiment or work out the theory. But that's not science yet. I need to get people to agree with it, ideally reproduce it, force me to defend it, in which case I'm dealing directly with objects not minds (although minds are the best explanation for those particular objects' behaviours).

Yeah, I didn't expect you to follow through. Patterns emerge... I am genuinely interested though, should you have a eureka moment.

Not to my mind. It is dualist in that it postulates the existence of minds and bodies as two different things, provides a possible reason why bodies might have developed minds through evolution (because minds are needed, they do something that cannot be done without them) and describes a realistic relationship between bodies and minds. — Olivier5

Now that sounds like physicalist :groan:

What's a vox pop? — frank

Vox populi

Ahhh....another closet Kantian. YEA!!!!! C’mon, admit it. Release yourself to the Force, padawan!!! — Mww

Hey, I already said nice-ish things about Kant.

As Searle said, the man on the street is a Cartesian. — frank

I guess if this was The Vox Pop Forum, that might be worth a damn :rofl:

What's the draw of property dualism? It takes a tiny bit of philomind to answer that. Last time I talked to 180 he came up pretty short in that area, so I don't expect much — frank

Ah, so I'm guessing don't hold my breath re: my previous post.

What makes property dualism worth the evil of being open-ended confusion?
— frank

I have no idea — Kenosha Kid

On which:

I'm not arguing against dualism per se, only against SD and thereby not undermining PD at all, especially as the latter is only epistemic whereas the former – your (Descartes') position – is extravagantly ontic. (Occam's, anyone?)

Anyone able to provide some commentary on this? Nothing in Hanover's argument suggests he's attacking an epistemic position and defending an ontological one.

There's the argument that the mind is something the brain _does_ and vice versa, the brain is something the mind does. The idea that it's a two-way street — Olivier5

But that's an idealist argument, no? Not dualist. I have fewer conceptual problems with idealism.

And if there was any science to show that, you could go in that direction. There isn't. — frank

Well there is, of course. But regardless, what you're saying here is that dualism is founded entirely on ignorance. I agree.

What makes property dualism worth the evil of being open-ended confusion? — frank

I have no idea, not a dualist, all sounds crazy to me. Property pluralism, fine, but that's nothing to do with minds and bodies.

Energy is another form, but it's a process of change, not a static object. — Gnomon

Mass is energy, and that's generally considered a material property.

A symbol is a subjective idea (metaphor, analogy) that represents an external object or someone else's idea. — Gnomon

Surely not! The meaning of the symbol depends on the system that interprets it, be it a mind or a computer. But the symbol itself is a physically encoded, abstract configuration. This sentence is full of symbols physically encoded in memory and in signals.

Unless you are thinking of the redundancy of symbol types over tokens, in which case, yes, these are categories and therefore somewhat subjective.

But even then, it clearly doesn't represent anything intrinsically. Identical symbols in two languages represent different things, for instance.

Same sort of thing as a body. Quartz clock, registers, blah blah blah. Why? — frank

Because neurons, synapses, blah blah blah.

Is the program execution on my doctor's computer a mind or a body?

You're saying that you know you start at 1 and end up at 9, but you can't examine the boxes inbetween using the system itself. But how can you know that without having at least taken a glance at the diagram - you must have 'examined' the system to some extent to even be able to report as much as you have. — Isaac

I get where Mww is coming from. The diagram is not in the system, it's an outside view. A system with an input and output can't have as its output a report on the system. If there's a bit of the system that measures the system, what is measuring it, etc. Never call the logger inside the logger ;)

However, nothing wrong with a system examining the inner workings of a sample of almost identical systems.

"It has a box 1 and a box 9. Box one contains the initial thought and box nine the final one, but I don't know what goes on in between"

Is that not a description of the system despite being a partial one? What did you use to arrive at it? — Isaac

Functionalism in a nutshell. Have the system report the map input :|--> output for all possible inputs. The resultant map is functionally identical to the system, but differently composed (unless you were unfortunate enough to do this on a map). Have the last node cache the results for good measure and boom, you have a system that knows so well what it does, even if it has no clue how it does it, it doesn't have to do it anymore. \o/

It's obvious to your doctor. — frank

I hope not. Most doctors need to handle computers these days. I don't want mine falling to pieces because she thinks hers is either conscious or cannot possibly work. I can say nothing about your doctor except maybe keep an eye out for a better one.

Succeeds at what? — frank

The proposition is in the OP of the debate thread.

Good shout!

Is this really an accurate generalization? — Cheshire

I'm open to counter-examples, but mind-body dualists certainly seem to break things down that way. A thought can't be physical, for instance, since it has no volume, no mass, you can't taste it, smell it, or poke it with a stick, things that are true of lots of physical things like spacetime, motion, force, etc. I can't pick up an executing subroutine of a program and spread it on my toast, or, as I said above, taste the gravity of an orange. You need phonons to hear anything but you can't hear a phonon.

The physicalist description of mind is that it's something the brain _does_, so describing it in a way that fits in very well with that doesn't seem like a compelling argument against physicalism. But maybe there's better dualist arguments I haven't heard yet.

Hanovers approach doesn't require any exposition beyond pointing to what we all know. — frank

Well Hanover's exposition seems largely to be pointing out things we don't know.

It is undisputed that there are (1) minds and (2) bodies. I count two things, which means it is undisputed that dualism is the case.

For instance, it isn't remotely obvious that this is good counting, nor that arbitrarily categorising things is a good basis for metaphysics (although that does seem to sum it up). I suspect what you think of as "what we all know" is probably what others might call "bunkum".

Neither property nor substance has succeeded in the sense of putting the question to rest for philosophers or scientists. — frank

Then I guess Hanover was doomed, since his position is supposed to be that substance dualism succeeds. All I'm seeing atm is: substance dualism is better if you prefer a non-physical mind; property dualism is better if you prefer a physical mind but still like dualisms. They both seem poor options, but the wording of the proposition allows 180proof to win by default in that case. Which is maybe why Hanover isn't taking it all that seriously.

Substance dualism succeeds where property dualism fails to account for the conceptual coincidence, or interaction, of ideality (mind) and reality (body).

(Note present tense.)

I contend that substance dualism will (1) offer a better explanation for how our thoughts are composed (as I've already discussed), (2) will offer a better explanation for questions related to free will, (3) will offer a better explanation for how we experience the world (providing an anchor for the infinite regress homunculus problem), (4) will offer a better explanation for our ultimate origins, and (5) will offer a better explanation for our purpose and meaning.

(Note future tense.)

I'm not sure how property dualism has been shown to fail (which ought to be the first argument), but the assertion that substance dualism _will_ (one day, I guess) succeed where property dualism fails seems rather an implicit admission that, as yet, it also has no success.

you can dismiss it all by saying that the metaphysician has no understanding of that field — Metaphysician Undercover

With utmost accuracy. I'm an idiot for getting into this with you.

There's space and the things in it or things and the space in between; is that 1 or 2? — Cheshire

Yeah, there's spacetime and stuff in it. And there's massive and massless stuff. And electrically charged and not electrically charged stuff. There's vector stuff and scalar stuff. So much stuffs. Why instead we differentiate between stuff and what stuff does is beyond me. I know you can lick the orange, but can you taste its gravity?!? Your move, atheists!

Hanover gives me the impression he doesn't really believe what he's saying but I don't really know him or his opinions well.

But as everything is a goat, I'll let this pass. — Banno

I have come across this but never knew it was a published article. A really insightful pastiche.

What makes you think this? — Isaac

A thought bwahahaha

Another but similar factor is that recalling a snatch of a tune doesn't seem much like hearing it for the first time. It's less difficult to differentiate if the components of the tune are simple: a simple beat, easy-to-remember lyrics, a simple, catchy melody... You don't have to study In Da Club to convince yourself you can perfectly reproduce the first 45 seconds in your head. However, after that the voice is too rhythmically complex, the lyrics too rapid to be recalled, and even some of the pads surprise you after your tenth listen. You have to _learn_ to play even a simple song in your head.

Something more harmonically complex requires great skill. When I think of a song, I generally get the groove, the bassline, the lyrics and the melody right, probably the vocal harmony or some of it, the basics of the beat (kick, snare, toms). But I cannot "play" the most recognisable chord in pop history: the opening chord to Hard Day's Night. I could probably learn to do so, but it'd take work. And that's a significant difference between hearing a song and thinking it: I don't have to learn Hard Day's Night to hear it.

You'd be able to correct me and fill in a lot of the gaps, but I expect I'm not far off in thinking that a song "playing" in your head isn't just a representation of the real thing (which is true of hearing it for the first time), but an approximation (recall is imperfect) to a representation (memory) of an approximation (memorisation is imperfect) of a representation (what I heard) of a real thing (what was played).

You are insane.

The agnostic does not rule out the existence of God whereas the Atheist does. What are your thoughts ? — Deus

Nor does it rule out the infinity of other ridiculous ideas we can come up with. Are we supposed to entertain them all, or just the ones that were popular between three- and one-thousand years ago?

Lame. — RogueAI

Isaac above tried to be more specific on this earlier to make sure you're not conflating two different things. You seemed to be stubbornly refusing to be specific then and you're clearly not improving on this point. My conclusion is that you're actively trying to conflate things and avoiding anything that will resolve your intented ambiguity, this time with stupid insults. Yeah, very lame.

Come back if you fancy a grown-up chat on this topic, it is an interesting one.