How often have you seen someone completely change their world views after exposure to a philosopher's ideas? — Tom Storm

I would say, based on contemplating neuroscience and life experience, that dramatic changes in a person's worldview is something that takes a considerable amount of time to occur.

It must happen. — Tom Storm

I'm skeptical.

If we accept that neural mechanisms are deterministic then subconsciousness cannot toss a coin. — MoK

Can coins be tossed in a deterministic world?

If so, then why can't a neural mechanism do something analogous to tossing a coin?

This is what I was getting at, but you presented it much more clearly. :up:

I look forward to MoK's response. — ToothyMaw

@jgill

Good job, both of you, of articulating what I was trying to point towards.

What is the point of your comments, really? — NOS4A2

What's your best guess?

When first confronted with the matter, I do not think that anybody right in his mind agrees on this. It is just too controversial. The first reaction is usually, disgust. It takes quite a while before someone can actually accept this kind of thinking. — Tarskian

Any thoughts on why?

Is it a blow to people's egos to face the limitations of human thought?

It definitely varies, as is typical of social primates.

No, I would say that our freedom allows us to decide when we are ignorant about the outcomes of the options. — MoK

I'm having a hard time seeing what you mean.

If we fail to recognize that we are ignorant in some regard do we lack freedom to the degree that we fail to recognize our ignorance in that area?

:up:

See the interview here, he grew up in my neighbourhood. — Wayfarer

Thanks to reading that, I've realized that Chalmers and I share a philosophical perspective.

...the natural bush environment is gorgeous.

We are lost because we are free, so say the existentialists — Gregory

:up:

I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of uncertainty about different things, but I am not absolutely sure of anything and there are many things I don't know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we're here. I don't have to know an answer. I don't feel frightened not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose, which is the way it really is as far as I can tell.

So said Richard Feyman. :wink:

We owe a lot to our good teachers. I was lucky to have several outstanding ones. — Vera Mont

:100: :up:

Something a bit like that happened to me on the Gr. 13 English final. They gave us a dozen titles to choose from, one of which perfectly fit a story I was already writing in my head. By the time I finished, there were only a few minutes left for the other questions. I answered less than half of them, and was sure I'd get a lousy mark.
I got 96%. My teacher liked the story so much, she wasn't bothered about the grammar and structure questions. She even invited me to a summer course in creative writing. (Couldn't go; had to get a job. I'm still sorry I missed it.) — Vera Mont

Very cool teacher. :grin:

IIRC, my prof wrote on my exam book, "What happened?", and gave me a B. My prof was an aspiring science fiction writer himself. He personally handed me back my paper on the use of mythology and folklore and thanked me for writing it, and that might have bled into my exam grade. :wink:

...nor have I given any indication of my empathy. — NOS4A2

Yeah, that was kind of my point.

There is. It’s called ‘scientism’. — Wayfarer

:rofl:

As if the practice is uncommon among philosophers in general.

Re sanity: I felt mentally disturbed when writing Red, White and Blue. In that I felt my inner self was being exposed. I was immersed not only in the story but simultaneously discovering...perhaps hidden aspects...who the hell is this writing? It's not me! — Amity

Something along these lines plays a major role in my tendency to avoid writing in isolation. (As compared to riffing off other people's writing on an internet forum, for example.)

Writing in isolation has gotten me into some disturbing states of mind where I have tuned out the world around me to a frightening degree. I suppose that if I made it a habit to write for half an hour every day, and then at the end of the half hour always did something that required me to pay attention to what is going on in the world around me, (repetitive jaywalking perhaps) I might be able to reduce the phobia I have with regard to writing.

I suppose there is an element of autistic hyperfocus for me, that tends to take me down deep rabbit holes. I remember one exam in a college literature class consisting of four essay questions. I don't remember what the first exam question was or what my answer was. But the first question triggered such a flood of stuff I 'had to' write down, that by the time I looked up from answering the first question, three quarters of the exam period had gone by.

It started as a challenge: Here is an opening paragraph; write the next paragraph. The story emerged over several weeks and took some amusing turns. — Vera Mont

That is something I could have a lot of fun with.

Simply because you don’t share your boss’ motor-cortex. You are responsible for what you do while your boss is responsible for what he does. It’s simple physics and biology. — NOS4A2

It is simplistic physics and biology that treats humanity as if each individual human is her own pocket universe, and ignores the interactions between people which result in us changing each other's thinking to some degree.

Perhaps it is misguided on my part, but I am loath to provide you with knowledge (power) of such interactions, due to your general lack of understanding of, and empathy for, people. So don't expect me to argue the point.

...one thing a picture is entirely incapable of depicting is that it is true. A picture can show how things might be, and things may indeed be that way, but the picture cannot include itself in its depiction and vouch for its own accuracy. — Srap Tasmaner

I agree that a picture is not capable of depicting that it is true. However, I question the practical import of that to some extent.

In my experience it can be important for me to recognize whether a picture is consistent with my observation of the way things go in the world. (My profile picture can serve as an example of a picture that is 'not consistent' with the way things go in the world.)

Sketching connections — Pierre-Normand/ChatGPT o1

Interesting (to me anyway) that this suggests a 'visuo-spatial' element to Chat GPT o1's process.

We don't have any specific reason to choose one option over another one when we have doubts. Therefore, our decision is free* in this case. — MoK

Would you say that having freedom is dependent on being ignorant about some things?

The brain is however a deterministic entity so it cannot freely decide when there is doubt. — MoK

There are multiple senses of the word "indeterminism" and indeterminism in the sense discussed in the following article is relevant here:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/300312282_Indeterminism_in_System_Science

You will only be able to see a very brief abstract if you aren't signed into ResearchGate, but here is an excerpt from the introduction:

It is my strong belief, expressed in an earlier paper (Elstob 1984), that the assumptions of
deterministic metaphysics will not yield a full understanding of the nature of mind. I suggest that what we need to do is develop a strong new metaphysics that places indeterminism in a central position. I see indeterminism as a key aspect of becoming in nature, of emergent processes, and of creative evolution. I believe that a metaphysics of indeterminism can be constructed that will give understanding as valuable as those produced from deterministic ideas, even though – because of the indeterminism – we cannot get from it the same degree of predictive and manipulative command of nature that determinism offers. I do not wish the overthrow of determinism, but I do want to see more clearly in what contexts it is properly applied. I want to see determinism and indeterminism both properly understood as real aspects of the world.

Therefore, there must exist an entity, the so-called mind, that can freely decide. — MoK

Brains are enormously complex entities that aren't deterministic in the sense that, given complete information about a brain and some rather enormous amount of the environment in which the brain exists, we could make perfect predictions about what will happen in that brain in that environment.

Furthermore, the things we do arise from a combination of conscious thought and subconscious thought (or subconscious information processing if you prefer).

So I disagree that we need to dualistically posit a mind as you suggest.

Language is the shadow cast by the mind into the world. People often mistaken the shadows for the light or simply think the shadows can tell them more about the light than the light itself. — I like sushi

:up:

The paradox arises because we had to trust that scientific (or more generally empirical) knowledge that we have sensibility and representative faculties to begin with (which is also mediated fundamentally by our a priori knowledge)—so we are trusting that our experience can give us knowledge of the things-in-themselves to some extent even though we thereafter must conclude we have no knowledge of the things-in-themselves.

Do you see what I mean? — Bob Ross

I'd say I have "some degree of incomplete knowledge" of what you mean. :wink:

I think you are using a definition of "knowledge" that I would find unreasonably rigid, and as a result you see a paradox where there is none, but I'm not wanting to go into that in depth, and others here are likely better equipped than I to discuss that with you, so I'm going to bow out of the discussion. At least for a time.

Firstly, the phenomena are a result of the cognition of sensations and not things-in-themselves; and those sensations are limited by our sensibility. — Bob Ross

I'd suggest seeking scientific understanding of what the sensations are a result of. It seems you might need some understanding of the role the things themselves play in your experience of sensations.

What are the details of the light that reflected off the thing and into your eye?

Do you see consideration of such matters off limits for this discussion. If so, might it be that you are trying to understand things in overly simplistic terms?

Secondly, any given phenomena stripped of the a prior means of intuiting and cognizing it is left perfectly unintelligible... — Bob Ross

Translating into wondererese yields, "If the functioning of a person's brain is disabled, the person won't have intelligible thoughts." My response to my interpretation is, "Right. And???"

I'm afraid you would need to elaborate for me to understand what you see as a problem.

How do we reconcile these problems as indirect realists that accept that our conscious experience is representational? — Bob Ross

Drop the black and white thinking in the sentence below...

Kant begins with the presupposition that our experience is representational and proceeds to correctly conclude that knowledge of the things-in-themselves is thusly impossible. — Bob Ross

..and recognize that we can have some degree of incomplete knowledge of things-in-themselves?

The hardest part for me is language. — Vera Mont

I can see how that would be difficult. Keeping multiple made up languages in my head simultaneously sounds especially difficult.

I just came in here for a brief respite from fighting over animal intelligence. — Vera Mont

Think you can escape so easily huh? :wink:

Do you know how much research and meticulous planning goes into inventing a planet? Damn real, it becomes a character: it haunts your dreams for months on end. — Vera Mont

Are there any particular aspects of creating a planet that stand out?

I once wrote a paper on the use of invented mythology and folklore in works of fiction like Watership Down and LeGuin's Left Hand of Darkness, and the richness that can be added to a story by such invented mythologies and folklores. Just that one aspect of inventing a fictional world sounds exhausting to me.

Mine is a perfectly reasonable paraphrasing of Plantinga’s argument. — Wayfarer

No. You seem confused, and are mixing bits of arguments against physicalism into your 'paraphrase'. The EAAN isn't an argument against mind/body physicalism.

On page 313 of Where the Conflict Really Lies Plantinga writes:

The basic idea of my argument could be put (a bit crudely) as follows. First, the probability of our cognitive faculties being reliable, given naturalism and evolution, is low. (To put it a bit inaccurately but suggestively, if naturalism and evolution were both true, our cognitive faculties would very likely not be reliable.) But then according to the second premise of my argument, if I believe both naturalism and evolution, I have a defeater for my intuitive assumption that my cognitive faculties are reliable. If I have a defeater for that belief, however, then I have a defeater for any belief I take to be produced by my cognitive faculties. That means that I have a defeater for my belief that naturalism and evolution are true. So my belief that naturalism and evolution are true gives me a defeater for that very belief; that belief shoots itself in the foot and is self-referentially incoherent; therefore I cannot rationally accept it. And if one can’t accept both naturalism and evolution, that pillar of current science, then there is serious conflict between naturalism and science.

Plantinga is not making an argument against physicalism. In fact Plantinga thinks everyone has a God detector organ. (Although sadly, yours and mine are broken.)

In Calvin's view, there is no reasonable non-belief:

"That there exists in the human mind and indeed by natural instinct, some sense of Deity [sensus divinitatis], we hold to be beyond dispute, since God himself, to prevent any man from pretending ignorance, has endued all men with some idea of his Godhead…. …this is not a doctrine which is first learned at school, but one as to which every man is, from the womb, his own master; one which nature herself allows no individual to forget.[2]"

Jonathan Edwards, the 18th-century American Calvinist preacher and theologian, claimed that while every human being has been granted the capacity to know God, a sense of divinity, successful use of these capacities requires an attitude of "true benevolence".[citation needed] Analytic philosopher Alvin Plantinga of the University of Notre Dame posits a similar modified form of the sensus divinitatis in his Reformed epistemology whereby all have the sense, only it does not work properly in some humans, due to sin's noetic effects.

If you have a Kindle, I can loan out my Kindle copy of the book so that you don't have to just pretend to know what you are talking about.

Again, it doesn't address the evolutionary argument against naturalism. He doesn't say that we're incapable of communicating, or that we can't convey information by speaking to one another. — Wayfarer

Plantinga doesn't consider the role of communication at all. That is what disqualifies his argument from serious consideration as an argument against naturalism.

The argument is that naturalism maintains that mental events such as beliefs are the result of natural (e.g. neurological) causes that can be explained by the principles of natural science (such as neurology) - in other words, instances of efficient causation, where one event (cause) brings about another event (effect) in accordance with physical or natural laws. In this view, mental states, including beliefs, are determined by physical processes in the brain, which are themselves the result of evolutionary pressures and biological mechanisms. Whereas, reasoned inference works by different principles, relying on the relationship between propositions where the truth of one proposition logically necessitates the truth of another. — Wayfarer

You are conflating other stuff with Plantinga's argument. It would probably be better for you to stick to quoting actual passages written by Plantinga, or start arguing for your own version and we can ignore Plantinga.

Your objection doesn’t address the argument. — Wayfarer

It addresses this gloss on your part:

Plantinga argues that if both naturalism and evolution are true, then the probability that our cognitive faculties are reliable is low. — Wayfarer

If you want to provide a more fleshed out account of this aspect of Plantinga's argument, I'll address that. In the meantime...

As I said, Plantinga doesn't consider the role of communication among members of a social species in making his case. So Plantinga's claim is that:

P(R|N&E) is low
(I.e. the probability that our cognitive faculties are reliable given naturalism and evolution is low.)

However, in order for Plantinga to address a scientifically informed position regarding the reliability of our cognitive faculties he needs to address a more complex scenario than he actually does. We can say that to be taken seriously Plantinga needs to address:

P(R|N&E&S)
(The probability that our cognitive faculties are reliable given naturalism and evolution and the evolution occured in a social species.)

However, in order to make that case Plantinga would need to establish that truth conveying communication occurring amongst members of the social species would do nothing to increase the reliability of the cognitive faculties of members of that species, as compared to being a feral member of the species without social interaction.

It's pretty ironic that an educator like Plantinga, needs to ignore the possibility of members of a social species educating each other and passing down culture, in order for his argument to superficially appear to work.

But you did say that Thomas Nagel... — Wayfarer

If you are going to claim that I said something, then please have the intellectual integrity to quote what I actually said, rather than make up stories of what I said to suit the narrative you are trying to gaslight people into believing.

Can you cite evidence from any version of the EAAN that considers evolution occurring within a social species? Can you recognize that failure to think through the implications of evolution occurring within a social species results in the failure of the EAAN to make the case it claims to?

Suppose evolution alone only resulted in something like a feral human child that you might barely call rational, but if the individual members of that species were raised in a culture with other members of the same species the result was members of that species going to the moon.

Where does Plantinga show any evidence of having considered the role of cuture?
— wonderer1

None of that is relevant, though. — Wayfarer

Sure it is relevant, if Plantinga hopes to do more than beat on a staw man account of naturalistic evolution.

Can you help Plantinga out, by explaining why the species under consideration is a social species for which generally communicating truths is of no more adaptive value than generally communicating falsehoods?

From the jacket cover of that title:

This intriguing line of argument raises issues of importance to epistemologists and to philosophers of mind, of religion, and of science. — Wayfarer

I agree the argument raises such issues, but that is a different matter than whether it merits being taken seriously as an argument against naturalism.

No, you said he was a crank. That is not a word I put in your mouth. — Wayfarer

So, an academically-qualified professor of philosophy, but Christian, therefore a crank, right? — Wayfarer

You asked a loaded question, insinuating that what is in bold is my thinking.

Anyway, the EAAN is a crank argument because it ignores many issues that were previously brought up in this thread.

Can you cite evidence from any version of the EAAN that considers evolution occurring within a social species? Can you recognize that failure to think through the implications of evolution occurring within a social species results in the failure of the EAAN to make the case it claims to?

Suppose evolution alone only resulted in something like a feral human child that you might barely call rational, but if the individual members of that species were raised in a culture with other members of the same species the result was members of that species going to the moon.

Where does Plantinga show any evidence of having considered the role of cuture?

Jeez! You guys get a room, will ya? — creativesoul

:razz:

So, an academically-qualified professor of philosophy, but Christian, therefore a crank, right? — Wayfarer

I didn't say anything about Plantinga being a Christian, and I'd like to hope you might want to refrain from putting words in my mouth like that. Do you think that you can?

Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism is a crank argument Do you think academically qualified professors of philosophy are somehow immune to being cranks?

Of course, if you want to argue for the EAAN I'd be happy to point out many ways that it is a crank argument.

It's very common for religious aplologists to engage in such propagandizing, and I'm done with biting my tongue when Wayfarer is doing it.
— wonderer1
Thank you for telling me. But I think I'll make up my own mind, if you don't mind. — Ludwig V

I wouldn't have it any other way. It seems as if you've taken something I said as suggesting otherwise, but if so, I don't understand what you interpreted that way.

Is there any chance Nagel's perspective is as scientifically well informed as that of anyone here?
— Patterner
If Nagel is not scientifically well informed, he is as well informed as me. In other respects also, I would very much like to be able to adopt Nagel's perspective. He's a much better philosopher than me. Yet I still disagree with many of his opinions, especially with regard to bats. — Ludwig V

I suppose I should have said "well informed in a way commensurate with the claims he makes". Nagel has fallen in with the cranks at the Discovery Institute, the crank Alvin Plantinga, etc. I don't see any reason to consider Nagel a better philosopher than you. How do you define better?

Language is a barrier unto itself, it is a performance, a recreation of the real in way that we hope are intelligible to others, it is not the real itself and therefore we can express the whole of what we feel and cracks begin to appear in our understanding. — Dorrian

Welcome to the forum.

I agree with a lot of what you say, but I'm not really understanding this. Should the "can" which I have highlighted be "can't"?

If so, what cracks in our understanding are you referring to?

I don't know how much science Nagel knows, but do you really mean to say that any perspective is not scientifically well-informed is not worth having? That's a very big assumption. — Ludwig V

I'm not saying that at all, I'm just pointing out that Nagel's perspective is not a scientifically well informed perspective, and that @Wayfarer tries to use Nagel's perspective to besmirch the perspective of people unlike Nagel.

It's very common for religious aplologists to engage in such propagandizing, and I'm done with biting my tongue when Wayfarer is doing it.

:halo:

Thomas Nagel has an interesting essay I often refer to, Evolutionary Naturalism and the Fear of Religion. I've mentioned it a few times on the forum, it's generaly not well received, but I find it very insightful. (Nagel is not pushing a religious barrow, he's an avowed atheist but one with the chutzpah to call scientific materialism into question.) — Wayfarer

Thomas Nagel is a scientific ignoramus and doesn't have a perspective based on being scientifically well informed. Your attempts to smear scientifically informed people with Nagel's emotional issues amount to pushing propaganda on your part.

:up: Fascinating! This seems to confirm what I have always believed: that dogs are capable of deductive inferences, rational thought. — Janus

It occurred to me after you responded, that in that video we have a demonstration of Kahneman's fast and slow thinking occurring in a dog. (And literally fast and literally slow.)