When he published his paper on the evolutionary argument against naturalism, a number of scholars responded critically to it, but, so far as I know, not along the lines that it was a straw man argument. — Wayfarer
The ability to 'disseminate information amongst social species' - for example species that make sounds on the approach of predators, like meerkats, or that of bee dances - is obviously advantageous to survival, but what does that have to do with the issue at hand? — Wayfarer
probably because it's irrelevant. — Wayfarer
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_manA straw man fallacy (sometimes written as strawman) is the informal fallacy of refuting an argument different from the one actually under discussion, while not recognizing or acknowledging the distinction.[1] One who engages in this fallacy is said to be "attacking a straw man".
If natural causation didn't come up with our reasoning abilities then who ever did did a pretty bad job considering all the people who's reasoning erroneously led them to naturalism. — Apustimelogist
What do you think 'natural causation' comprises, and how might it be related to reason? It's actually quite a deep question, explored in part in this earlier thread. The gist is that causation of the kind that characterises physical and chemical reactions, is of a different order to logical necessity, which is the relationship between ideas. — Wayfarer
This is where Plantinga's argument is relevant. He says that in naturalized epistemology reason and cognitive processes are seen to be grounded in evolutionary psychology and neurobiology. This means that our ability to reason is understood as a product of evolutionary processes that favor adaptive behavior.
Plantinga's argument contends that if our cognitive faculties are the result of evolutionary processes driven purely by survival, then there is no reason to accept that that they produce true beliefs, only that they produce beliefs that are advantageous for survival. — Wayfarer
It's not. — T Clark
Who says they can't? — T Clark
I'm not sure I know what that means, but I'll try this - can a robust theory of chemistry reliably predict which chemical systems are alive? Again, no. — T Clark
I don't see how that differs significantly from the previous question. — T Clark
I don't think Plantinga's argument is air tight, but neither is it merely a strawman. It's been taken seriously because, even if it is a simple argument, there is something to it. — Count Timothy von Icarus
...I do think it brings up matters well worth thinking about. — wonderer1
But if causal closure is true the mental never—on pain of violating the principle—has any effect on behavior. — Count Timothy von Icarus
"How is it exactly that experience is caused by/realised by/is identical with the functions of complex systems? Why can't all these things happen without experience?" — bert1
Who says they can't?
— T Clark
Physicalists, specifically functionalists — bert1
The hard problem is how we get from no consciousness to some consciousness. — bert1
A robust theory of chemistry will predict which systems are chemical systems. A robust theory of life will predict which systems are alive. (Although there may be an issue about the difference between definition and theory here.) — bert1
Physicalism is normally defined in terms of casual closure. Reductionist materialism also assumes causal closure. But if causal closure is true the mental never—on pain of violating the principle—has any effect on behavior. It is just "along for the ride." Everything is determined by particles and how they interact, so no one ever goes and gets a drink "because they feel thirsty" (at least not in the causally efficacious sense of "cause.") — Count Timothy von Icarus
The idea there is an underlying "objective reality" is also the product of our cognitive faculties. So is the idea of "truth." — T Clark
I don't really know what you mean by different order… — Apustimelogist
I don't know if there is anything inherently reliable about reasoning. — Apustimelogist
For example, apokrisis theory is that a system is conscious if and only if it models its environment and makes predictions based on that model — bert1
So this theory could in principle perhaps be used to create an artificial consciousness, and the theory would predict that the resultant creature would be conscious. — bert1
What I’m referring to is the distinction between physical causation and logical necessity, so there’s not much point addressing that issue if you don’t understand it. — Wayfarer
…using reason to try to ascertain a reasonable position. — Wayfarer
Plantinga's argument contends that if our cognitive faculties are the result of evolutionary processes driven purely by survival, then there is no reason to accept that that they produce true beliefs, only that they produce beliefs that are advantageous for survival — Wayfarer
Everything is determined by particles and how they interact, so no one ever goes and gets a drink "because they feel thirsty" (at least not in the causally efficacious sense of "cause.") — Count Timothy von Icarus
I think Plantinga's argument is ultimately just one simplified form of an entire web of arguments that can be made vis-á-vis psychophysical harmony, causal closure, and epistemology. Hoffman is able to flesh this out with some models and empirical results. Is it air tight? No. But then again what they are arguing against is also a position that is not airtight. Yet this position, like reductionism, is one that seems to demand that it be "assumed true until decisively proven otherwise," and I'd venture that there is not good grounds to accept this — Count Timothy von Icarus
It could be said that this simply characterises the outlook of post-modern nihilism. Strawberry Fields, nothing is real, nothing to get hung about. Maybe it’s just a consequence of our highly fragmented and confusing cultural moment that calls that into question. But the counter to that is that philosophers have always been concerned with capital T Truth. It’s a very difficult question to bring into focus, but through comparison of the historical schools of philosophical spirituality, it can be discerned. — Wayfarer
What Hoffman is calling into question is the mind-independence of the objects of cognition. — Wayfarer
In pre-modern philosophy, it wasn’t objects that were understood as being real independently of any mind, but their Ideas (forms or principles). That was the conviction behind scholastic realism, inherited from Greek metaphysics. Logical realism, which is related, says, for example, that logical laws and principles are real, insofar as they’re the same for all who can perceive them. So they’re mind-independent, on the one hand, as they’re not the product of your mind or mine, but they’re also only perceptible through reason, to be grasped by the intellect (as ‘intelligible objects’). But that implies a very different epistemology to objective or cognitive realism which put sensory experience at the centre of judgement about the nature of reality. — Wayfarer
If we get scifi, we can imagine AI being created that then takes over control of the human world and entrains it to its own entropic purpose. It sets the world to work building more chip fabs, datafarms and power stations. Humans would just mindlessly clone AI systems in exponential fashion at the expense of their own social and ecological fabric. Big tech would attract all available human capital to invest in this new global project.
Oh wait ... [Checks stock market. Gulps.] — apokrisis
I think perhaps one point is that an organism that survives is an organism that is navigating an actual structure to the world, it must act sensitively to that structure and anticipate that structure in order to make sure it's paths keep within the kinds of bounds for it to survive. Surely, fitness payoffs will have objective places within that objective structure, with objective paths between any part of the world and some payoff or reward. Seems to me that even if there may be no kind of access to a single perspective-independent view of the world, an organism benefiting from fitness payoffs will need perceptual faculties that are synchronized to and can differentiate the actual structure of the world. — Apustimelogist
Seems to me that even if there may be no kind of access to a single perspective-independent view of the world, an organism benefiting from fitness payoffs will need perceptual faculties that are synchronized to and can differentiate the actual structure of the world. — Apustimelogist
but I question whether it even makes sense to say there is only one "veridical" way for an organism to be perceptually coupled to the environment. — Apustimelogist
Yes you can; it's called refutation by contradiction. — Michael
Are you implying that a brain cannot invent or learn to use logic? — Apustimelogist
Seems to me that even if there may be no kind of access to a single perspective-independent view of the world, an organism benefiting from fitness payoffs will need perceptual faculties that are synchronized to and can differentiate the actual structure of the world. — Apustimelogist
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