I don't think that the argument from reason is setting out to prove that reason is infallible or all-knowing - simply that it comprises the relationships of ideas, and so that can't be reduced to, or explained in terms of, the physical cause-and-effect relationships that are grist to the naturalist mill. — Wayfarer
Logic is not the natural science of thought. That's psychology. — Srap Tasmaner
You seem to be taking it for granted that a pure deduction cannot be at the same time a neural process. — Janus
Not 'taking for granted': presenting an argument for it — Wayfarer
That's why you need an actual argument showing that if brain state A, with contents P, causes brain state B, with contents Q, that a causal relation between A and B is incompatible with a logical relation between P and Q. — Srap Tasmaner
Isn't that psychologism? — Wayfarer
Right. Going with intuition is relying on the deep learning which has occurred in neural nets between our ears.
— wonderer1
I think that's right, but our intuitions can fool us, so we do need to examine the reasoning and its foundational presuppositions and our desires and aversions that underly our intuitions — Janus
“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.”
I don't have to reduce logic to psychology to point out that logic describes some relations between propositions and no relations among an epistemic agent's belief states. — Srap Tasmaner
you need an actual argument showing that if brain state A, with contents P — Srap Tasmaner
I would add to what you said above, that we can learn from the study of applications of Artificial Neural Nets (ANNs), to improve the effectiveness with which we use our brains. A key consideration with ANNs is the training set, or the set of inputs that were involved in an ANN learning whatever it learned. Analogously, we can consider the size and scope of the training set that went into the deep learning underlying our intuitions, and consider whether our intuitions are likely to be trustworthy or untrustworthy under whatever the present circumstances are. In doing so we might recognize a benefit to increasing the size and/or scope of our training sets, and improve the training of our neural nets, resulting in an improvement to the reliability to our intuitions in the future. — wonderer1
However, if I adopt a view on account of logic, then that informs my 'belief states', I am willing to accept it, and act on it. — Wayfarer
How could you specify 'content' in this sense? How would you ascertain what the 'brain state' is for some ostensible content? — Wayfarer
One proposition can entail another; one belief state cannot, in this same sense, entail another. — Srap Tasmaner
He may be the go to guy for Platonism, but for that reason not the go to guy for Plato or Aristotle. Of course he and other Platonists would not agree. — Fooloso4
Aristotle regards living beings as self-sustaining functioning wholes. The four causes are inherent in a being being the kind of being it is, not something imposed on or interfering with it from the outside. Human beings are by their nature thinking beings. This is not an explanation, but a given. It has nothing to do with Gerson's "form 'thought'". Nothing to do with a transcendent realm accessible to the wise.
Rather than an argument from reason, Wayfarer, Plato and Aristotle use reason to demonstrate the limits of reason. — Fooloso4
You're splitting hairs. — Wayfarer
Tom, your unwillingness to commit to at least a provisional position on the Random Chaos vs Rational Cosmos question is puzzling to me. — Gnomon
I spend a lot of time in 'provisional credence' country. I hear alarm bells when people say they know something to be certain. — Tom Storm
If the world is all a "blooming buzzing confusion"*1, why bother to post on a philosophy forum? — Gnomon
Doesn't a forum like this presuppose that we can eventually make sense of the complex patterns of Nature, and the even more confusing patterns of Culture? — Gnomon
Can you recommend an introductory text? — Janus
Robert Kowalski (early developer of Prolog) has been suggesting that instead of trying to get machines to think like us, we ought to consider learning to think more like machines. Wrote a book about it. — Srap Tasmaner
we think of logic as normative, within limits; if P entails Q, and you believe P, then you ought to believe Q. Do people always do what they ought? — Srap Tasmaner
This [i.e. the OP] appears to be begging the question, by presuming that the exercise of reason is something different than information processing occurring in our brains.
Smuggling in a dualism which isn't part of the materialist view doesn't do anything to contradict a materialist view. — wonderer1
Naturalism being true only requires beliefs being *caused*, by what at the lowest level are non-rational causes. — wonderer1
Aristotle regards living beings as self-sustaining functioning wholes. The four causes are inherent in a being being the kind of being it is, not something imposed on or interfering with it from the outside. Human beings are by their nature thinking beings. This is not an explanation, but a given. It has nothing to do with Gerson's "form 'thought'". Nothing to do with a transcendent realm accessible to the wise. — Fooloso4
if happiness [εὐδαιμονία/eudomonia] consists in activity in accordance with virtue, it is reasonable that it should be activity in accordance with the highest virtue; and this will be the virtue of the best part of us. Whether then this be the Intellect [νοῦς/nous], or whatever else it be that is thought to rule and lead us by nature, and to have cognizance of what is noble and divine, either as being itself also actually divine, or as being relatively the divinest part of us, it is the activity of this part of us in accordance with the virtue proper to it that will constitute perfect happiness; and it has been stated already* that this activity is the activity of contemplation [θεωρητική/theoria]. — Nichomachean Ethics, Book X, 1177a11
Wisdom [σοφία] is the most perfect mode of knowledge. A wise person must have a true conception of unproven first principles and also know the conclusions that follow from them. 'Hence Wisdom must be a combination of Intelligence [Intellect; νοῦς] and Scientific Knowledge [ἐπιστήμη]: it must be a consummated knowledge of the most exalted objects.' Contemplation is that activity in which one's νοῦς intuits and delights in first principles."
Diverting the thread to AI research and neural networks as a kind of 'general argument for physicalism' is just changing the subject. — Wayfarer
Shoshin (Japanese: 初心) is a concept from Zen Buddhism meaning beginner's mind. It refers to having an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions when studying, even at an advanced level, just as a beginner would. The term is especially used in the study of Zen Buddhism and Japanese martial arts,[1] and was popularized outside of Japan by Shunryū Suzuki's 1970 book Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind.
The practice of shoshin acts as a counter to the hubris and closed-mindedness often associated with thinking of oneself as an expert.[2] This includes the Einstellung effect, where a person becomes so accustomed to a certain way of doing things that they do not consider or acknowledge new ideas or approaches.[3] The word shoshin is a combination of sho (Japanese: 初), meaning "beginner" or "initial", and shin (Japanese: 心), meaning "mind".[4]
It's okay if you don't get it. — wonderer1
It refers to having an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions when studying
Many people dislike science because it is seen to be delivering a picture of humans as exhaustively material beings. — Janus
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