To practice making arguments instead of just reading arguments.

That’s why that passage leads into a discussion of analytic a posteriori knowledge: the meaning of words (analytic) is obtained from experience (a posteriori). — Pfhorrest

Got it. Thanks!

Much of Taiwan's manufacturing is in China.
The list of American companies with manufacturing in China is frighteningly long. This is just a partial list:

http://www.jiesworld.com/international_corporations_in_china.htm

constrained — Daniel

Constrained is an interesting word choice. Nevertheless, the way that this is formulated appears to be a fallacy of division (I.e., if something is true for the whole [the machinery] then it must be true for the parts [the ideas]); which is one reason why I would reach a different conclusion as referenced in my earlier example of going from hunting and gathering to differential equations with essentially the same "machinery".

Just a couple quick thoughts while looking at this on an iPhone.

all beliefs should be considered justified enough by default to be tentatively held until reasons can be found to reject them....... Beliefs can only be shown false, or not yet shown false; never positively shown true. — Pfhorrest

Also, it is unlikely that people knowingly hold false beliefs, which is why a scientific position would be to consider ideas held as true be viewed as tentative hypotheses that have not yet been disproved.

Beliefs not yet shown false can still be more or less probable than others, as calculated by methods such as Bayes' theorem. — Pfhorrest

Beliefs about the same phenomenon or fact? Ex: the creatures of the Earth were placed here by God; they were placed here by advanced aliens; they evolved from earlier forms; they spontaneously popped into existence.

Synthetic a posteriori knowledge is the intersection of two distinctions that philosophers often make between different kinds of knowledge: the distinction between synthetic and analytic knowledge. — Pfhorrest

Should this be synthetic a priori?

for example, one person in a discourse insists that to be a bachelor only means to live a carefree life of alcohol, sex, and music (ala the Greek god Bacchus from whose name the term is derived), with no implications on marital status, while another person insists that to be a bachelor only means to be a human male of marriageable age who is nevertheless not married, with no implications on lifestyle besides that, then they will find no agreement on whether or not it is analytically, a priori, necessarily true that all bachelors are unmarried — Pfhorrest

But this involves synthesizing information that was obtained through experierience.

I have reasoned that every idea must also be subjected to natural selection since ideas depend on the brain whose actual shape and function are a consequence of natural selection acting on this organ. — Daniel

If this is supposed to mean that the ideas, themselves, are passed along through one's genes, then I wouldn't agree. That sounds too much like instinctual behaviour.

Cultures, however, do pass along ideas. Ideas do mutate (I.e., change) over time, and cultures do adopt new ideas. The behavior of individual members within a culture is selected across the lifetime of the individual. The processes work as they do because of our genetic endowment.

then I am programmed, by evolution, to have a limited mind, in the sense that my brain will only be able to generate a particular set of ideas whose nature is mainly determined by my brain's actual state — Daniel

We have been the species homo sapiens for less than 300,000 years. Our brains have not evolved all that much in this relatively short time-span, yet our brains, which adapted for hunting and gathering, for some reason were also evolved to perform differential equations.

If you observe animal behavior outside a laboratory setup, its obvious they experience affection, recognize purpose, understand the world logically and even have a sense of humor, all with similarity to humans. — Enrique

This is partly bald assertion and partly non-sequitur. "It's obvious" is also a dubious claim. I could agree, for example, that it would be fine to describe some interactions as affection, but I would have to acknowledge that I couldn't be certain what the intentions of the organisms were. It would just be short-hand. As for the other examples, I'd say that it is far from obvious that one would be justified to characterize their behaviours in that manner.

I think the idea that animals, including humans, are "governed" in some sense by inborn instinct or behaviorist stimulus/response is a historical relic. — Enrique

I would be curious about what could have led you to arrive at this conclusion. If not instinct, what mechanism is at work for a spider spinning its web? How about the imprinting of geese on what is present shortly after birth? What about nest building and other maternal activities, migration patterns, animal courtship behaviors, etc?

Again, stimulus/response describes reflexive behavior, which accounts for a relatively small amount of why a given response occurs, and a small amount of what an organism learns to do vis-a-vis classical conditioning.

The question is how a concept of conditioning that is clearly false for most mammals and birds at the very least became so mainstream. — Enrique

Well, the question was, how do you distinguish irrational from rational behavior? But given that it appeared flawed from the start (for the reasons already stated), I'm not holding out hope that there is a coherent account of such a thing as it applies to non-human animals.

Given that many things they do are guided by imprinting or built in programs, the moment then run into new things, there is a strong chance they will be irrational, especially if they do not adapt and learn that though ti triggers their habits it is not what they think it is. — Coben

I'm interested in how you contrast rational from irrational. You replied by saying there's a strong chance they will be irrational when confronting something new. You added, "adaptation" and "habits", but none of what you wrote explains the question asked. Your descriptions anthropomorphize the animals you're describing (e.g. risk takers), but you haven't established that animals engage in a kind of Bayesian analysis or other kind of decision-making.

You also said something about what animals think. Do you know what animals think? How do you know? I can only observe how animals behave and the conditions under which the behavior occurs. Are you able to do something else?

All forms of animal behavior (humans also being animals) can be understood in terms of stimulus and response. — Coben

This is a very limited description of behavioural understanding as it is only a description of reflexes. Instinctual behaviour and instrumental conditioning account for much of what animals do.

Animals are quite rational about many things. They can even figure things out, like how to open doors, how to work across species to get prey — Coben

Animals can learn to do many things. However, if you call the things they do, rational, how do you contrast what they do with irrational behavior?

And the unconscious is entirely rational. Why wouldn't it be? — A Seagull

I relate rationality to reasons, reasons to arguments, arguments to language, and language to consciousness.

However, I'm amenable to considering other usages of the term.

How was this process affected by natural and social selection pressures? — Enrique

We have to extrapolate backwards given that our existence as a species precedes our records, or available tools of science, by one to three hundred thousand years.

At some point in our evolutionary history our vocal musculature came under operant control. This eventually allowed us to ask questions about what we were doing, what we were going to do, and why we were doing it. Our social communities taught us how to answer these types of questions. But what in our available nervous systems (e.g., interoceptive, exteroceptive, proprioceptive) is evolved to provide information on one's intentions or desires?

What impact did language have on the character of human behavior as well as our rationality and irrationality? — Enrique

I think rationality cannot exist without language. In the absence of language I think all that is left is the unconscious.

I think conversation is very informative and can be analysed for content that expresses private or mental information. — Andrew4Handel

Do you believe that one can use thought to explain one's thoughts? Isn't this necessarily circular?

I reflect on my mental states but so far I don't know what they are. — Andrew4Handel

Do you think a person can come to talk about one's mental states with any precision? How would talking about mental states come about?

That I would describe as replicable experiments; i.e., we get the same results when we repeat these experiments. To me the term "replicable effects" is stronger, suggesting that the effects themselves are replicable. — InPitzotl

Different experimental tactics reduce threats to internal validity to varying degrees and add to the strength of statements describing the influence of the independent variable (IV) relative to the dependent variable (DV). As the effects on a DV are repeated through the systematic application of the IV across increasing numbers of participants, the study's external validity (i.e., replicability) strengthens. The effects of the IV on the DV can be demonstrated within an experiment and across experiments. When an individual participant's behavior changes within an experiment, you know the degree of impact on that individual. When study replications occur and the effects of the IV on the DV are repeated across experiments, we may eventually reach the point that theories and models are formulated to describe the observed phenomena. This is what has happened in the behavior analytic literature with respect to gambling as just one example.

It sounds to me like you're using the terms a bit differently than these sources suggest — InPitzotl

It could very well be. Dictionary terms are descriptive, not prescriptive. Members of the fields view the subject of why people do what they do fundamentally differently. Psychology has been tied to metaphysics in a way that behavior analysis has not
http://www.behaviorpedia.com/conceptual-issues/is-behavior-analysis-part-of-psychology/

So would you say that the mind does not affect behavior, that there is no such thing as the mind, or that the mind itself is simply a result of operant conditioning? — InPitzotl

I view "mind" as shorthand for the sense of agency we all have, and a way to describe the thoughts that we happen to notice. How this sense came to be I would speculate had more to do with the evolution of our genetic endowment and the evolution of our culture. Because our vocal musculature came under operant control in our evolutionary past, we are now able to create all sorts of fun and interesting paradoxes for ourselves to argue about. Now we might have even more time to sit at the safety of our computers opining about such topics.

The demonstrations you're referring to sound like something akin to Pavlovian experiments. — InPitzotl

Pavlovian experiments were based on reflexes and stimulus-stimulus pairing. Operant conditioning is fundamentally different in that it appeals to the selective effects of consequences on behavior in a manner analogous to how biological evolution appeals to the selective effects of contingencies of survival.

I'm confused. If different people experience different effects, then in what sense are those replicable effects? — InPitzotl

Good question. Experimentation reveals the orderliness of events on behavior, and with proper experimental control, allows the scientist to predict, verify, and replicate the effects. This further reveals principles at work that are then described with models that explain the observed phenomena.

However, when stepping away from experimental settings and experimental control, and people casually observe one another doing things for what appears to be capricious reasons, the naive observer assigns causes to events noticed in conjunction with what the person was doing (i.e., Hume's problem of induction), or will speculate metaphysical psychological explanations, or will rely on reports of what a person believes was felt (or at work) at the time the person made a choice--a reliance on an unreliable source of information.

Where I'm choking is that you're partially complaining about psychological explanations on the basis that one needs scientific testing, but then appealing to scientific testing performed as part of a psychological investigation. — InPitzotl

This is a common misunderstanding. Psychology is the study of the mind. Although it is true that operant conditioning had its beginnings in psychology, it eventually became a field unto itself as the study of the self went from metaphysics, to logical positivists, to radical behaviorists in one of the lines of epistemological changes. The study of the mind became the study of behavior, with an entirely new set of tools and scientific methodology.

Is "I" an appropriate axiom?

IMO, a priori arguments cannot predict the outcomes of single-case research across human participants. One needs scientific testing. For example, when looking at outcomes for people that play slots, we find that some people overuse.

Because different people experience different effects on their behavior, philosophical and psychological explanations often pay too much attention to the individual and too little to the conditions when trying to explain addiction.

People attempt to explain the apparent loss of will through metaphysical schemas. They postulate a will at work when people do something normative, or a will that is absent or inaccessible when behaving at the extremes--due to other hypothesized psychological processes at work. In the end, they ignore the simplest explanations (from demonstrations) that the schedule of reinforcement delivered at the slots selected the person's gambling behavior in a way that looks very similar to what happens when arranging those schedules of reinforcement for non-human species used in experiments.

What experimentation shows through replicable effects on people's behavior is that the person is not the origination point for the choices they make. People that want to appeal to free will need the person to be the one that creates the thought, otherwise, assigning credit or blame to the person for the things they do becomes tenuous.

Focusing on resisting a particular action is not demonstrating awareness, connection or collaboration with the range of alternatives available. — Possibility

Is this a model you've come up with to explain free will?

Demonstrating awareness
Demonstrating connection
Demonstrating collaboration

If a person does not resist buying scratch tickets when the three conditions you mentioned (awareness of options, connectedness, and willingness to participate) are present, then where is the will?

"You all know the argument from design: everything in the world is made just so that we can manage to live in the world, and if the world was ever so little different, we could not manage to live in it. That is the argument from design. It sometimes takes a rather curious form; for instance, it is argued that rabbits have white tails in order to be easy to shoot. I do not know how rabbits would view that application."

-Bertrand Russell

You can’t force someone to be aware, to connect or to collaborate. — Possibility

Also, forcing someone wouldn't be free will.

But if these are steps that individuals willingly and freely take. For those that feel guilt about hurting people they love and are connected to; for those that are aware of the options; for those that are participatory, willingly collaborating with others. What stops their will from resisting scratch tickets for example?

think about the question that ought to be addressed before anything else — SophistiCat

What is the matrix?

Not just awareness - also connection and collaboration. — Possibility

If addicts recover, then they were aware, connected, and collaborative. If they do not recover, then any of the three systems might not have been functioning. Did I get that right?

So increasing awareness of, connection to and collaboration with the potentiality of alternatives available is essential to the freedom of the will. — Possibility

I'm taking your use of "essential" to mean "necessary". Addicts involved in recovery programs are routinely informed of alternative options. If awareness is freedom, then where is the freedom when there is awareness? Thanks

the addict is NOT free — Possibility

Is anyone?

One important question about word-first concepts is this: how do we satisfy ourselves that this thing or this constellation of things corresponds to this concept? (Conversion experiences should be interesting.) — Dawnstorm

While I agree that concept formation probably more easily develops thing-first (attending to stimulus features like wavelength, size, and topography), than word-first (descriptions lacking physical form) the essence of concepts is generalization within classes and discrimination between classes.

A young child will use the word "doggy" in the presence of an animal. The parent will say, "no, that's a spider". Through many examples and non-examples, the child will say "doggy" when in the presence of a an organism that shares enough of the necessary phenotypes to be called a dog that the child's verbal community would confirm for the child that her labeling of the organism conformed with the requisite features. The errors will get closer to the margins (e.g., calling a wolf a doggy).

We do, however, do something similar when discussing concepts without specific stimulus features. What is love? What is disgust? What is diffidence? How do these terms become concepts? I love chocolate. I love dogs. I love warm spring days.

Our communities evaluate our use of concepts and we begin to self-evaluate. What are ghosts? An object moves for no apparent reason and someone says a ghost moved it. We ask what is meant and the person expounds. In the end we don't know if we're referring the same stimulus conditions that another person is when talking about ghosts, but we still draw conclusions about the claim of the existence of ghosts; just as we do about Pegasus, leprechauns, or Slenderman.

Some people argue that you are not justified in taking a position about a topic you can neither confirm nor deny, but maybe it's better to say I will begin believing in the claim when there IS sufficient evidence. Until then, the position of holding out hope of confirming possible existences for things premised on extraordinary claims (as some do) does not seem rational (IMHO).

Basically, I'd need some way to check for evidence of God, or some sort of perspective that allows me to interpret stuff that's there as evidence for God. I've developed the unsystematic intuition that if you have faith in God, everything is potential evidence, and if you don't nothing is. And that's a bit of a road block. I don't think there's a specific direction my God concept has to... concretise?... before I can really tackle the question of existance. — Dawnstorm

I feel similarly. But does this mean that you have formed an opinion one way or the other?

but I think the bulk of one's worldview is unconcious, and it's less a finished product, and more an ongoing progress. — Dawnstorm

I think so too. Thanks for your thoughts on this.

The addict can choose to increase awareness, connection and collaboration with elements of choice - but it’s not an easy road. — Possibility

Addicts may certainly be aware of a better lifestyle, and they may desire to live a healthier life, but their struggle often comes from a lack of connection to this better, healthier lifestyle as a choice they perceive themselves capable of making. They seek out and commit to addiction recovery programs, but in many situations they’re looking to be fixed by a mechanic, without realising that they need to critically examine themselves how they think about and evaluate everything in relation to their addiction, and then actively seek awareness, connection to and collaboration with the alternatives available. — Possibility

You describe a problem of an addict failing to increase awareness, connection and collaboration with elements of choice, and you make a claim that the addict doesn't realize the need to critically examine oneself, but I do not see what is going on with the will. Where did the will go? The addict is not being coerced. Is the addict free to choose abstinence? If so, then why is the price so often death by suicide?

They only ‘feel compelled’ because they are ignoring, isolating or excluding elements of ‘choice’ from their perceived potential, as either:
- the ACT of choosing;
- the variety/RANGE to choose from; or
- the specific ALTERNATIVES or options available to be chosen;
before they even determine their actions, let alone initiate them. — Possibility

Does this mean that the addict is the agent directing these psychological states? In other words, they are ignoring, isolating or excluding elements of choice, but could choose to attend to or include elements of choice?

If this is the case, why do they seek out various addiction recovery programs? There sure are a lot of addicts saying that they desire to quit their vice. They express guilt. They commit time going to programs. Some even commit suicide. 25% of alcoholics and 20% of gamblers.

One would think that the friends, family, and professionals in the lives of these people might point out the other options. Yet, addicts repeatedly fall off the wagon and report struggling against thoughts related to their vices. But they're the ones in control, right? They can choose a different path. They know the better choice. They desire the healthier choice. They do things consistent with a commitment to a healthier choice. And still they struggle. Where's the struggle coming from? And to kill oneself over the guilt of being too weak to quit? Does the one-armed bandit actually hold a gun to the addict and demand that its lever be pulled?

I say neither probability estimate is based on anything but a pre-existing bias one way or the other.

You? — Frank Apisa

If bias is the difference between the estimated value and the actual value, then one party would be biased against what is true and the other would have no bias. I'm probably one of the unbiased ones ;-)

Dr Bruce Greyson of University of Virginia. His YouTube talk: “ Consciousness Independent of the Brain. “ — Agathob

Can you summarize his arguments and evidence?

for instance is, "Is there a $10 bill in this (unopened) envelope or not?"...the answer is either YES or NO. It cannot be both. — Frank Apisa

A couple of comments. One, the claim of a $10 bill in an envelope can be investigated. The claim could then be "proven" true or false. Two, the claim regarding the bill is a mundane claim. The evidence confirming or disconfirming would be ordinary.

Set up the P1 and P2 that logically leads to a C of: Therefore there are no evil spirits that can influence what any human does. — Frank Apisa

I agree. I don't know how to inductively or deductively establish the truth for the presence or absence of a deity.

Are you supposing that humans (Homo sapiens) at our stage of evolution are able to know everything about what does and what does not exist in the REALITY of existence? — Frank Apisa

I have no issue claiming ignorance on any topic. But if ignorance about the specifics, or even the fact that we can't know anything with certainty, means that we can't know anything, or can't make reasonable inferences with respect to probability, then it seems like we have to throw our hands up and say that there's no good reason to have an opinion about any unsubstantiated claim.

I don't think it has to be all or nothing.

So the hard atheist and the hard theist have at least a 50% chance of being correct. — Frank Apisa

I'd like to press this line of reasoning a bit to see if there are conditions where you would differ. Is a 50% chance of being correct true of any theistic claim? Would that then mean that the chances are 50/50 for the existence of Yahweh, Allah, Thor, Loki, Vishnu, Shiva, Amaterasu, etc?

What would be the reasoning to reject a person's claim of committing an evil act because the devil made him do it? Could you reject such a claim if it is just as likely to be true as untrue?

Finally, should we then treat non-theistic claims of the existence of ghosts, spirits, or other metaphysical phenomena as just as likely to exist as not exist?

You either are aware of your existence, or you are not — StarsFromMemory

If you had no language, would you be aware of your own existence? No matter the answer, how could you know?

Thanks for the thoughtful response.

thing-first concept. — Dawnstorm

word-first concept — Dawnstorm

Do these terms mean that you have observed the stimulus prior to its description, or, you heard its description prior to your observation, respectively?
If the order is the distinction, I'm still unsure how that would be the critical variable. Wouldn't the extraordinariness of a claim be more pertinent?

The concept never reaches a high enough epistemic level within the confines of my world view — Dawnstorm

Maybe it would help me to understand the epistemology you use to develop an understanding of things contained in the universe, and what is meant by level.

world views other than your own are only available via interpretation through the lense of your own, and how much - if anything - of human worldviews are human universals isn't clear — Dawnstorm

One's world-view is ultimately what a given individual believes is understood. But people's worldviews can undergo conversions. For example, Muslims can become Christians and vice versa. Christians can become atheists and vice versa. I've heard testimonies of fundamentalists who are now apostates that make claims that God does not exist. People use the justifications they learn, but I suspect, are also making decisions, at times, that are inconsistent with one's own world-view, and at other times, without any consideration to it.

With respect to possible universals, it's a challenge for me to think of any; especially when we find differences even with the people with whom we mostly agree.

I've never come to clear understanding on this myself, so I'm really struggling to put intution into words. — Dawnstorm

I think this has been helpful. Thanks

For me, the word "God" derives its meaning entirely from its lived social context. — Dawnstorm

I agree. The arbitrariness of geography and social group as practical determinants of one's world view is astonishing.

And if you have to understand what it is that doesn't exist when you say "God doesn't exist," I can't be an atheist. — Dawnstorm

How about if someone says "unicorns don't exist". Would one be unable to not believe in unicorns if one understood (maybe even imagining renditions seen) what is meant by the question? Or, is there a different point I missed?

I worry that this amounts mostly to meaningless babble, but I'm not sure I can do better — Dawnstorm

I think I understood what you meant by the two propositions having the same epistemological status. However, I'm not sure I understand what distinction you were alluding to in the comparison of the two propositions "God exists," and "God doesn't exist". Thanks

Prior to the act of choosing, the metaphysical will is entirely free. — Possibility

But aren't cases like gambling addicts curious in this framework of metaphysical freedom? Gambling addicts are one group of individuals where it seems difficult to say that a person's will is free such that the person is the agent making the choices about what to do next. Can a person be free at the same moment they feel compelled to do something where no external enforcing agent exists?

You're just repeating the ad hominem...good job! — 3017amen

What ad hominem??

David Pakman addressed the claim appropriately. There are angry Christians, angry tall people, angry vegans, etc. O'Reilly wouldn't be incorrect because he, himself, is a scumbag. Judging his claim based on his personal characteristics would be an ad hominem fallacy. His claim is merely a throw-away anecdote because he cannot substantiate his claim beyond anecdotal evidence, which comes vis-a-vis his motivated reasoning lense.

Do you "believe" (guess, estimate, suppose) that no gods exist...or that it is MUCH MORE likely that no gods exist than that at least one does? — Frank Apisa

Clarifying questions are great.

I suspect that... — Frank Apisa

It may be true. It seems irrelevant if you've gone through the step of clarifying what the other party means, but okay.

I lack a "belief" that any gods exist...and I refuse to be described as an atheist. — Frank Apisa

Okay. You don't call yourself an atheist. What is the contention? Other people describe your position as that of an atheist? If you say, "well, you use that term, but I don't think it appropriately represents my position". What else is there to do? Sticks and stones will break my bones?

You raised a point that the etymology of the word atheist differed from some of the current usage with respect to lack of belief. Some people responded by pointing out that usages change over time. That premise is either true or false. Is it true that word usages change over time?

The movie Back to the Future made fun of this point when Marty Mcfly called serious matters, "heavy", and Doc responded with, "Is there a problem with Earth's gravitational pull in the future? Why is everything so heavy?"

Agreed.