Teleology implies that an event took place because it was intended. — T Clark

I'd agree with that.

It’s pretty clear that human actions often have goals and purposes. By my reading, the OP raises a broader question of teleology as it applies to the universe as a whole and even to logic. — T Clark

Positing a final goal isn't less logical than positing a first cause. All events follow the first cause, yet we can't have a first cause without a preceding one, so we're left with an infinite regress. Teleologically, we say every event is for a purpose, yet you can't have a final event that lacks purpose either.

Or you can make each finite and posit a first cause (big bang) and a last goal (the ultimate purpose). The former is chosen by those with scientific bias. The latter, religious bias.

My response to the OP only suggested that probability theory can be applied to make predictions based upon what we know of prior causes as well as the competence of the planner.

The OP references "attracted to" language to explain teleos, but that's scientific talk, denying a designer, comparing teleos to magnetic pull. The OP is just a restatement of scientific secularism.

There’s no need — and no real basis — to speak of purpose or final causes. We cannot say things like "event B happened due to it being attracted towards state C", since state C isn't even guaranteed. — tom111

If I assemble architects, framers, plumbers, carpenters, landscapers, etc to build me a house, can we not say the teleos of the enterprise is to erect a house, even though the probability of the house coming to be is uncertain?

I’m not bothered by the politics, I’m bothered by the misuse of language. — T Clark

By bothered, that probably means you grumble, but not more than that.

I think its uncontroversial that political views appear on a spectrum and that most people's views vary over their lifetime and are not even fully consistent.

"Non-binary" is applied to gender to challenge traditional views of a rigid man/woman distinction and to place it on a varying spectrum, like politics.

Since no one ever applied the term binary to politics traditionally, applying it to politics creates no controversy. It either is meant humorously or it is meant to identify oneself as liberal.

A flip side approach to this would challenge an uncontroversial binary distinction and that would signal you were conservative. As in, "I'm non-binary when it comes to tossing a coin. I choose heads-ish."

Consider the phrase, "I am politically nonbinary.". Do you discern the speaker's intent differently if they are liberal or conservative? — David Hubbs

The term "non-binary" is borrowed from gender orientation discussions, which creates a liberal connotation, meaning anyone who claims to be non-binary politically is likely actually liberal or sarcastically conservative.

Currently reading:

Naming and Necessity, by Kripke - Feels like I should get through this.
The Magician of Lublin, by Isaac Bashevis Singer - Half way through it. Still trying to find out how the piece of shit main character Yasha is going to be given some redeeming quality.
Wittgenstein on Forms of Life, By Anna Boncopagni - it's one of the Cambridge "Elements" books where it concisely address a topic five people care about.
The Brothers Karamazov - I think I'll post this everytime because I'll never get through it. The problem is I can't remember what I last read with all the names and stuff. Maybe I'll just enjoy a Wiki read of it.

Made me want to climb a mountain ... sadly, I still haven't :( More fool me! — I like sushi

Find a metaphorical mountain to climb. You're less likely to die.

Agreed, along with "Moby Dick", "Red Badge of Courage",that Atticus/Gregory Peck yarn by what's her name..Harper's Crossing? , "My Brother Jack", and Xavier Herbert's "Poor fellow,My Country..or whatever it was called": just to deter the impression of national bias.
Basically, most of the high school "books/author you should read". Blatant brainwashing...as it was called way back then. — kazan

I liked Moby Dick and to Kill a Mocking Bird.

“Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee.”

I just thought Great Gatsby was greatly over-rated. My favorite hotel though is the Jekyll Island Club, which captures that Great Gatsby wealth thing. I'm going there this weekend to celebrate the independence of my great nation from the oppressive Brits. For hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee.

I really enjoyed that one. What did you think? — I like sushi

Yeah, definitely a classic.

I wish I could claim this came from recollection, but I found this, from The Sentiment of Rationality, which I haven't read, but got a couple cool quotes from:

“The mind asks for a universe that suits it, and must believe in such a universe or despair.”

And also:

“The deepest need of our nature is not to be rational, but to believe that life is worth living.”

The unapologetic idea that belief arises from needs and wants is such a profoundly different worldview than a scientific one that pretends objectivity. "Pretend" is my bias in that sentence.

A choice in that analysis would be an IF-THEN, ELSE IF-THEN, OR ELSE statement. That is basically the structure of a choice. Freedom comes in degrees that corresponds to the amount of information one has at a given moment. — Harry Hindu

So, within your brain is the if/then directive. If you the glove does not fit, you must acquit. The glove does not fit, so you acquit. Explain how that was a choice. You had to acquit. You lacked the ability to do otherwise.

I'm not saying I'm transcending determinism. I'm using determinism to my advantage to make a choice that determines an outcome that is advantageous to me. — Harry Hindu

This just doesn't make sense. It's like saying a computer program takes advantage of its algorithem to choose an outcome. The computer does whatever it's programmed to do. Choice isn't in the picture in that analysis. You will do whatever is advantageous to do if that is what you are determined to do, and not if not.

Having more and different experiences than another means you have more freedom in making an informed decision that maximizes your benefit than another. — Harry Hindu

That doesn't make you freer. It just means you have more data driving your results. The role that data plays though remains determined if determinism is the case.

If you changed the determinants i.e. genes, environments, nutrients, and experiences, then I would have chosen differently. For example, if the shopkeeper pointed a gun at my head and said that I must buy the chocolate-flavoured ice-cream or else he will shoot me in the head. This change in the variables would change my choice of which flavour of ice-cream I would buy. — Truth Seeker

You changed my question. My question was given State X (which includes whatever the exact set of determinants are in the world at that time), could you have chosen otherwise? You stood there looking at the ice cream flavors and you chose strawberry. Could you have chosen chocolate?

Therefore, I choose the strawberry flavoured ice-cream. — Truth Seeker

Could you have chosen otherwise?

One of the four factors is experiences. Aren't my experiences my own and not someone else's? Am I not the decider of which experiences I have? If I chose to listen to only one side of an issue, did not I not choose to constrain myself? Another was genes. Aren't we all genetically unique? — Harry Hindu

How does uniqueness and ownership correlate to free will? Does the fact that something has an experience and a unique body entail freedom? I don't see how that works.

When you say you have the ability to listen and decide one way or the other, that suggests a libertarian free will. It's not that I disagree with that, but describe how you were able to transcend determinism and make that choice independently.

To be determined does not rule out being more or less self-determining and self-governing. To say that freedom requires that our actions are undetermined is equally problematic, since what is wholly determined by nothing prior is necessarily spontaneous and random, which is hardly "liberty." — Count Timothy von Icarus

He itemized four governing factors that determined behavior (Genes, early environments, early nutrients, and early experiences). Which of these is the "self" that "more or less" governs? And why do we add the new concept of "self" as a holistic entity when we already know the 4 factors that govern decision making.

There's obviously not an answer to the free will question. It's one of the perennial philosophical issues. At the end of the analysis, I think we must define free will as both incoherent and necessary. Incoherent in that it makes no sense that something can self-generate from nothing, yet the agent can be judged for what was generated. It also doesn't matter, as you've noted, whether the event was determined or not determined

It's necessary though because without it, we cannot pretend to offer reasons for our decisions, but must admit we did as we were regardless determined.

My solution is to accept the self as the governing agent, but I don't attach elements to it. It's mystical. Maybe a terrible solution, but no more terrible than the alternatives.

You have a choice, but it is not a free choice. It is a determined and constrained choice. — Truth Seeker

Henry Ford built the Model T and said you can choose whatever color you want as long as it's black. Is that what you mean by choice that is not free?

I do understand that free choice doesn't mean I get to choose to do anything, like I realize I can't choose to fly. But it would seem necessary that if you wish to call something choice that there must be at least one other option. It's like if you take your dog on a walk on a leash. He can choose to walk next to you or he can get dragged down the road. I suppose that's sort of a choice within contraints, but that seems different than what you suggest where you say the choice is "determined."

Genes, environments, nutrients, and experiences don't merely influence our choices. They determine our choices, and they constrain our choices. — Truth Seeker

What do you think of this model? Do you think it is accurate? Please explain your reasoning. — Truth Seeker

This is hard determinism. That being the case, what I think of this model is whatever I have to think of this model. If I agree, my reason must be that I agree based upon my "genes, environments, nutrients, and experiences" because that's what you asserted is the cause of everything.

I might offer you a long winded explanation for why I agree or disagree, and it might seem logical to you, or it might not, and it might be the very reason I think I agree with you, but, at the end of the analysis, we must assert that whatever I believe I must. I have no choice in the matter as you've indicated.

It's too sycophantic is my problem with it. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I have found this as well, but I've also found that you can ask it not to be, and you can present your ideas as if they are being submitted by your opponent. You can even ask for a brutal attack of your positions, which can be pretty entertaining in its own right. Depending upon the version of AI you're using, it might be remembering your every post, and so you might want to ask it to brutally tell you what your limitations are, you can do that as well.

In any event, we're just at the beginning of the AI revolution and I see the limitations we're pointing out as temporary, and they'll be altered over time in order to satisfy whatever the demand is. If what we actually want is brutal honesty, that will be coming.

Patience is not infinite. — Banno

No, but it is nevertheless a virtue. I fear your OP could be read not just as a suggestion that sometimes direct communication with a poster is helpful for clearing up issues, particularly if the matter is so esoteric that it might not be of interest or ability to others, but as a suggestion that one is better served if they remove themselves from the common man so they can discuss their thoughts among their elite equals. I can understand the impulse, particularly if you've grown impatient with challenges you feel not valid, but I also believe it is through challenging ideas (even those they may not fully grasp) that many learn, and if you remove yourself from the fray you deprive others that opportunity.

I say this to you in particular because it is obvious to those observing that you have engaged in rigorous study of contemporary analytic philosophy and your contributions have elevated those discussions. Personally, I can say I'd know far less of those areas without your posts because those topics would not have appeared on my radar given my leanings.

My point here isn't, of course, directed only at you, because there are a good many who have their own areas of expertise and many who might have none but might have occassional moments of accidental brilliance. It's really directed at anyone who is considering your OP and thinking of moving their thoughts to a PM consisting only of their hand selected peers. My preference would be to keep most discussions within the general assembly hall and not in private drawing room. But, as I've said, everyone has the right to post publicly, privately, or not at all.

This supposes that the we and the French participate in the same Form of Life...

Are you confident in that? :wink:

Even less so with ChatGPT, since it participates in a form of life in the way of a block or an apple. — Banno

So a rabbi and an anthropologist walk into a bar, and Ludwig asks "why are you here?" They each say "it's the right time to be here. " And they don't communicate because their forms of life vary, despite the syntactically correct response, yet the question and answer were entirely different to each.

The question then is where is this form of life? You say, I don't care where it is, I just need to know that it is. I see it in the way the anthropologist looks at and speaks of evolution and the way the rabbi prays and reads his Talmud.

But my response is it absolutely matters where it is because unlike meaning of language being use, form of life is not in behavior. It is assumed from behavior, but not caused by behavior, meaning a rabbi who mimics an anthropologist to avoid persecution remains a rabbi.

Form of life is inherent in the being. ChatGPT given time will be spoken from the perfect robot, whose behavior will perfectly mimic the human's. I contend it will not use langauge. It is a lion.

A thought experiment: would a community of AI generators that speak publicly create langauge because they all have the same form of life?

Would their language be just as much language as the one we speak?

As to the moderation question, one can of course post in the forum or the PM. I, for one, would obviously prefer a public conversation. That is, after all, the purpose of a place like this.

As an ideal, I try to consider ourselves not just as learners, but as teachers, which might mean sometimes patience with those who are missing the point. This is to say I'd prefer an open chess tournament, with grandmasters and novices alike.

I’m not saying there aren’t any new ideas in philosophy, but philosophers generally seem very reluctant to drift away from the concepts they’ve read about. They seem hesitant to create new ideas altogether because such ideas likely wouldn’t meet the academic standards. — Skalidris

Academic philosopy is such an esoteric field that I'd suspect there have been new ideas that have emerged that are considered major shifts within the discipline (of which there are many subcategories) that they generally go unnoticed by those of us not affected. I think if you were to choose a particular area of philosophy and do a deep dive into it and looked for the major contributors, you would find a significant amount of creativity.

I'd just be interested in where your assessment comes from. Do you work in a philosophy department and find the profession has stalled out and there is a resistence to change? I would defer to personal information you might have, which I would think, if the case, that would speak to political issues at play, which just means you have a dysfunctional system. I can believe that, but I otherwise woudn't think the best and brightest have run out of new ideas.

The Gavagai thought experiment is of a linguist attempting an interpretation of a language. The point is that the linguist doesn't need to decide the referent of "Gavagai" in order to participate in the form of life consisting partially of the hunt and the feast.

We don't need determinate meaning to get on with the language games nor with the forms of life. — Banno

But this doesn't address the meta element of the form of life, which is critical to holding the system together. The Wittgensteinian enterprise is to dispense with the relevance of the metaphysical as the foundation of meaning, but if it creeps back in, then it has failed.

To address the form of life in your Gavagai example would require a linguist who is attempting to interpret the language not of a foreign people but of a lion. The lion represents the being with a differing form of life, who, per Wittgenstein's clear statement, we would not understand. The Gavagai example is no different from French to English to German. That is, all those folks share a form of life. We're looking for those who don't.

Consider AI. You can speak back and forth with AI, with full understanding, but I submit you are not playing a language game with ChatGPT. It is a lion. It lacks your form of life. What this means is that there is a metaphysical anchor to meaning. It is use by something like you. What is like you isn't decipherable by simply looking at the person, the lion, or the dolphin. It is something inherent within that being that processes like or not like you. If not, you are left with a convincing parrot, lion, AI program, or Searle's Chinese speakers as playing language games, which they are not.

So my problem here is that if we're going to say that we're taking as a hinge belief the uniformity of thought processes among various people, why not just make it a hinge belief that we truly have the same beetle metaphysically. If we're going to reduce this down to an object of foundation/hinge/faith, why choose one method over the other?

Israel hans't banned people from leaving (except rich people on boats) because people are excited to stay. That's the biggest win Iran is achieving in terms of security metrics. Less Israeli population, less power, less skills, less threat in the future. And this economic cost of missiles blowing up infrastructure, laboratories, ports, disrupting normal life, removing the "sense of Western style safety", is in addition to the economic costs Israel had already incurred due to operations in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria, along with boycotts due to those actions. — boethius

But for their proxies in Gaza being annihilated, their nuclear facilities being devastated, their being under attack by the strongest military force on the planet, their enemy being a 3,000 year old civilization that is relentless, and that they agreed to a cease fire, Iran's got them just where they want them.

Hence my reference to the Gavagai example. We don;t have to assume that Gavagai means "un-detached rabbit part" in order to participate in the hunt and the feast. — Banno

But how do you link this to form of life? Differing languages don't exclude similar life forms. The French and the English can have differing forms of life.

If social interaction dictated form of life, then a loyal dog that returns with prey shares a form of life.

Form of life is feeling like a deus ex machina.

Could dolphins have a form of life so different to our own that we could not understand it? — Banno

Yes.

If so, how would we recognise it as a 'form of life"? — Banno

We couldn't. We'd assume it, but it could be a robot. You and I could be differing forms of life. It's assumed many humans don't share forms of life. You also could be a bot.

We assume we are similar forms of life. It's a hinge belief. This is a metaphysical assumption. It's the Cartesian solution. God would not so deceive us.

My point is I'd rather not play the Wittgenstein game and just assume my beetle is yours. Metaphysically the same.

This strikes me as backdooring the beetle back in. The lion's language is meaningless not because it's gibberish, but it's because he doesn't share our form of life. This means it's not langauge misuse that identifies his seperate life form, but it's his thought processes brought about by some metaphysical difference in the lion.

If we're going to rely upon metaphysical similarity to create meaningful language, why not leave it at the beetle?

My first reaction is that of course there need be nothing in common between the various language games. — Banno

If there are variable language games, are there also variable human forms of life that play those games, or is there but one?

If there are many, then we cannot know who shares our form, and so we cannot know that we are playing a language game at all. My conversation with a parrot isn't public use.

If you say there is only one human form of life, then that belief must itself be a hinge, because we cannot derive it from language use (which presupposes it), and we cannot claim to know it empirically without violating Wittgenstein’s broader rejection of a metaphysical correspondence theory.

On Quality" - Robert Pirsig (published posthumously)

Good as a short introduction to Pirsig's thought. — Baden

I've got to think it pales in comparison to Motorcycle Maintenance just from me not having heard of it.

More or less that the skeptical position isn't inferior to the non-skeptics in terms of philosophical excellence. Both are valuable. Also there's a sense in which this delineation is quite soft, so even stating a preference for one over the other is a difficulty. As we see earlier Janus disagreed with my classifying Hume as a nit-picker, and @Hanover disagreed upon that. So far it seems to me that the idea is still quite hazy. — Moliere

I don't fully accept that theism/atheism = believer/skeptic. That's the whole faith debate all over again. The scientific worldview does not permit skepticism of the worldview, namely of a belief in science. The theistic worldview does not permit skepticism of that worldview, namely of a belief in God. The point being that we're all believers and non-believers alike, and most of us question the certainty of our conclusions, but not of our methods. That is to say, there are plenty of "I don't really know" responses from theists and it's not like there aren't plenty of "It's just a plain fact" responses from scientists.

Theists don't walk around claiming full knowledge of everything without question any more or less than scientists. It's not as if scientists truly truly question everything.

Do dolphins have a language that is so different to ours that we cannot recognise it as such? Good question. I do not know the answer.

But you are not a dolphin. — Banno

I think there's much to discuss about "form of life." Maybe the topic for another thread one day, but it seems central yet not well explained (at least for me).

And when you are not looking up to the heavens, when you get hungry or cold, and look instead to what is going on around you now, then we may find agreement, and maybe work together to build a fire and cook some food. — Banno

Philosophy generally is what you only do on a full stomach, a luxury reserved for the few.

Kosher, I presume? — Banno

Glatt.

What about the beauty of a late game home run? — Fire Ologist

Ever since they got rid of the never ending extra inning baseball game, it ceased having any beauty to me. I'm an anti-modernist. I don't even use electricity. I read the internet by candle light.

The metaphysician may only know more about the world by accident, and despite all of the rigorous arguments and language used to support what he thinks he knows, he is more truly taking shots in the dark. — Fire Ologist

This is overly deferrential to analytic methods, exposing a bias towards its supriority. I'm not sure you've said otherwise specifically, but I would push back on any notion that metaphysicians (which I take to mean "anti-Wittgensteinians") claim certainty and do not in fact alter their specific viewpoints over time, subject to what they take to be knowledge. Centering the world around those who take language as a way of conveying private thought meaning to one another versus those who consider communication to be a language game where meaning is derivable through use seems a bias toward analytic philosophy as well, as it suggests there are two sorts of people in the world Wittgensteins and not Wittgensteins.

Dennett was hobbled by a reductive physicalism that, for all his brilliant writing, he could never make plausible for me. — J

He struck me as consciousness avoidant.

As to Chalmers and Dennett―the latter seems to me by far the more imaginative philosopher. — Janus

Interesting. I find very much the opposite.

There might be a Scotsman lurking here...

At the risk of oversimplifying, best I make explicit that I did not deny having a world view, nor suggest that having a world view was a bad thing. I said that my worldview is incomplete, and that this is a good thing, since it allows for improvement, whereas those who have complete word views have no such luxury.

So back to the Scotsman. Is it that we truly have different world views when and only when we reject the results brought about by the tools of other traditions?

Otherwise, how do we tell that we truly have different world views?

The danger is that “different worldview” becomes a way of immunizing one’s beliefs from critique—you only truly have a different worldview if you reject mine outright. But there's that Scotsman, no? — Banno

My distinction isn't Scottish, it's lionesque, as in we're disagreeing upon methodology employed in truth seeking, not just inconvenient results I reject post hoc. Our game yeilds differing results because we're not playing the same game. I appreciate the lion distinction is meant more radically typically, as in it results in an entire failure to communicate, but that seems unecessary. It makes as much sense to consider gradients of lion-speak, as in its not a fully differing form of life, but just somewhat so.

My methodology looks up to the heavens, but not in a childlike way, but in a way that searches in all instances for the teleos, as in why would that happen given everything has a purpose. You simply cannot start where I start and ever end up with a conclusion we must walk away in silence to metaphysical questions.

But I'm here to learn, so tell we where you see I've diverted into nonsense.

Williams James seems to go too far in collapsing truth into will altogether. — Leontiskos

I do think that James creates criteria to limit the amount the will allows one to create one's own reality, but I do think there is merit to the position that the will is a dominant force in one's life, enough so that it can significantly change one's outlook and perspective. It's especially noticable on website like this, where I often detect an over-riding sense of doom, this idea that if you don't accept a certain pessimism, then you're looked upon as blissfully ignorant. And the point is that it's not ignorance. It's a choice.

And so that's why I ask aloud why someone thinks there's virtue to absolute fidelity to logic and scientific discovery if it yields such misery. But I do understand that some cannot but do that because to do otherwise would be alien to their nature. This is what James means by "live," meaning the decision to beleive has to be of something you actually have the constitution to believe.

For these reasons I find Hanover’s approach too strong (although at this point he is only quoting James' more mild ideas). — Leontiskos

My personal worldview actually is very different than this, only referring to pragmatism because it is more palatable here than my actual views that lean toward theism and mysticism, but that's an aside as far as what my particular beliefs are. What's not an aside is that everyone's personal beliefs form their worldview, which is what I think the OP doesn't address as closely. What it actually addresses is the fact that there are two ways of philosophizing within the analytic tradition, and some do it rigorously and some do it sloppily. Those who are rigorous allow beliefs to fall as logic requires. Those who are sloppy maintain their views regardless of where they are contradicted, using analytic systems when it benefits their biases and ignoring the problems when it doesn't.

When we truly have different views of the world (i.e. not a shared view), then rejection of the results brought about by the tools of other traditions isn't inconsistent. If my world is not conducive to examination by an atomic microscope, it doesn't bother me what results it might show.

Now suppose I ask, "What kind of question is that?" I'm genuinely interested in your answer; for what it's worth, mine is, "It's a philosophical question" — J

I don't think wisdom can ultimately mean "believing what makes you happier though." — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm intrigued. I spend a lot of time thinking about how to think about these sorts of things -- meaningful beliefs that are false, sometimes to the point that their falsity isn't exactly the point. — Moliere

Yes, I see I've sparked some interest by pointing out the Americanist of philosophies, that unprincipled notion of pragmatism. The hell with rigorous principles. Let's get shit done.

"James’s central thesis is that when an option is live, forced and momentous and cannot be settled by intellectual means, one may and must let one’s non-rational nature make the choice. One may believe what one hopes to be true, or what makes one happiest;"

https://www.princeton.edu/~grosen/pucourse/phi203/will.html#:~:text=James's%20central%20thesis%20is%20that,a%20sharp%20disagreement%20with%20Clifford.

It's not so simple as to suggest you can create falsity in light of truth, but working through the criteria:

First, the evidence must be inconclusive. You can't just will to believe you're the king of the world. So, something like God would be an example.

Second, it must be what he calls "live," meaning it has to be something you can accept as true. If the belief is so alien to your nature, then you simply can't will to believe it.

Third, it must be forced in that you will choose necessarily and live by the consequences of your choice. That is, you will either believe in God or not, and the way your life goes from the there will be affected.

Fourth, it must be momentous. The decision will impact your entire existential orientation.

Note how it puts the will into belief. A not so subtle move. You are in charge of your beliefs. Accepting that radical notion as true opens many doors.

The leap from aporia to closure cannot be justified. — Banno

But this is just your recitation of your ideosyncratic worldview.

Consider:

"Our passional nature not only lawfully may, but must decide an option between propositions, whenever it is a genuine option that cannot by its nature be decided on intellectual grounds."

William James, Will to Believe

Banned unenlightened for being a broken record. — Benkei

He doesn't come close to breaking that record.