As Banno pointed out, your argument does not follow. — Lionino

Right, I was expecting someone to point that out, and I'm hardly surprised that it was Banno.

My point of contention is this... — Lionino

Keep working on it. You are 'finding' problems that aren't there, and you didn't recognize the problem that was there.

(◇p ∧ ◇¬p) → ◇(p∧¬p) is invalid. — Banno

I was wondering how long it would take. :wink:

Let X = "The person who made that post as wonderer1 is the same person as the person who posted previously as wonderer1."
— wonderer1

If you take the conclusion to be a premise, I can prove that God is in my backpack making waffles too. — Lionino

Since I am the person who has made all the posts as wonderer1, I know X. How exactly do I get from there to God and waffles? (It is breakfast time.)

It's logically possible that the person who is posting as wonderer1 right now is not the same person as posted previously as wonderer1. However it isn't metaphysically possible.
— wonderer1

How so? — Lionino

Let X = "The person who made that post as wonderer1 is the same person as the person who posted previously as wonderer1."

It is the case that X.

Therefore X is metaphysically possible.

If ~X is also metaphysically possible, then it would be the case that a logical contradiction (X and ~X) is metaphysically possible.

It is not the case that the logical contradiction (X and ~X) is metaphysically possible.

Therefore it is not the case that ~X is metaphysically possible.

I’m not sure that counts as belief. Belief seems to me to be a conscious activity. Machines can record and analyze information but they don’t believe anything. — Michael

This gets me thinking about 'muscle memory' events, like knocking a cup off a counter and reflexively catching it without time to think. We must have subconscious expectations which direct moving our hand to where it needs to be to catch the cup. Are these subconscious expectations not in some sense beliefs? And if we posit conscious beliefs and subconscious beliefs, is there a clear dividing line?

6. Therefore, our world is the result of information processing in a mind, this mind we call God. — Hallucinogen

Why in God's mind rather than in say, Tod's laptop?

Copied and pasted from another forum:

Let's suppose there is a six dimensional universe (6 spatial dimensions and one temporal dimension). In this universe there is a naturalistically evolved intelligent being called Tod.

Now suppose that due to existing in this six dimensional universe, brains and computers can be vastly more powerful than in our universe due to the extra dimensions available for interconnectivity, higher complexity of parts per volume, etc. (Feel free to add dimensions as needed.) In other regards we can consider Tod to be a lot like us for the purposes of this thought experiment.

Now Tod is a researcher at a university, and the prevailing wisdom is that intelligent life can only evolve in a universe with four spatial dimensions or more. Tod sets out to study this matter, and in the course of this study he sets up some comprehensive simulations of a universe with three spatial and one temporal dimension. After some trial and error, Tod succeeds in creating a simulated universe where intelligent life evolves.

Of course Tod's creation is meant to be understood as our universe. So, some questions:

1. Can it be proven by beings inside such a simulation what the nature of their existence is?

2. Is Tod deserving of worship by the intelligent beings that exist inside the simulation?
2a. Does it change things to know that Tod is going to shut the simulation down in ten minutes?
2b. Does it further change things to know that ten minutes in Tod's time is equivalent to 10 million years in our time?

Now, suppose Tod's colleague Ged gets a copy of Tod's program and runs it on his own 6D computer. However, unlike Tod who is hands off other than setting the simulation going, Ged gets really interested in the lives of some intelligent beings in one tiny microcosm of the simulation. Ged develops ways to manifest himself within the simulation he is running and to communicate with the 3D people who are being simulated. GED tells some of the 3D people that he is going to build 6D robots in the actual 6D universe and give the 3D people he approves of bodies in the real 6D world.

3. Is GED more worthy of worship than Tod? Why or why not?

What hath Tod wrought?

However, what would something metaphysically impossible but logically possible be? — Lionino

It's logically possible that the person who is posting as wonderer1 right now is not the same person as posted previously as wonderer1. However it isn't metaphysically possible.

Maybe the whole thing is an elaborate attempt to get rid of Melania?! — Fooloso4

:rofl:

3. Quantum cognition and decision theory have shown that information processing in a mind exhibits quantum principles known to underlie the emergence of physical space. — Hallucinogen

Having looked at some of the quotes and links you provided, they seem to be presenting speculation rather than the sort of evidence you suggest.

I think my favourite complexity is the one about the non-coding bases, which are 98% of the molecule. What is all that stuff doing there? I don't believe it is doing nothing. The question is, what is it doing? Talk about terra incognita — Ludwig V

Well, not really terra incognita, because stuff is being learned about non-coding DNA. One such detail (and actually kind of old news) is that broken down genes for the production of egg yolk components occupy some of that DNA.

Embryonic development in nonmammalian vertebrates depends entirely on nutritional reserves that are predominantly derived from vitellogenin proteins and stored in egg yolk. Mammals have evolved new resources, such as lactation and placentation, to nourish their developing and early offspring. However, the evolutionary timing and molecular events associated with this major phenotypic transition are not known. By means of sensitive comparative genomics analyses and evolutionary simulations, we here show that the three ancestral vitellogenin-encoding genes were progressively lost during mammalian evolution (until around 30–70 million years ago, Mya) in all but the egg-laying monotremes, which have retained a functional vitellogenin gene. Our analyses also provide evidence that the major milk resource genes, caseins, which have similar functional properties as vitellogenins, appeared in the common mammalian ancestor ∼200–310 Mya. Together, our data are compatible with the hypothesis that the emergence of lactation in the common mammalian ancestor and the development of placentation in eutherian and marsupial mammals allowed for the gradual loss of yolk-dependent nourishment during mammalian evolution.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2267819/

Another stretch of DNA is a broken down version of what once was a gene for producing Vitamin C.

Other details involve stretchs of DNA which can promote or inhibit the transcription of coding DNA.

I'm far from having any expertise on the subject, but my impression is that it would be a rather daunting task for most to come up to speed on what is understood about noncoding DNA these days.

When it comes to the philosophy of mind and language it’s littered with figurative and almost superstitious language, and is largely speaker-centric. — NOS4A2

Given...

1. The complexity of our brains and the physical processes occurring therein.
2. The idiosyncratic differences between each of our brains. (Differences in biological factors and in experiences resulting in learning)
3. Our level of technology being well below what would be needed to get a remotely comprehensive 'picture' of what is going on in our brains.

...I don't see how it could be otherwise.

Still, there is progress. A huge amount has been learned over the decades I've been considering the topic and the pace of that learning has been accelerating as old guesses get replaced with new, better educated, guesses.

Perhaps it’s time we gravitated away from the metaphors, for instance “hear”, and focused on the actual. — NOS4A2

Good luck with that. I can recommend getting some education in electrical engineering, as an aid to trying to wrap one's head around the subject.

I have a strong urge not to post this reply, because I partly think it's all nonsense (but there's still something in it somewhere that I think I want to say). But for once, I think that very confusion is sort-of on topic, so I force myself to click "Post comment". If you've been reading this, I have. — Dawnstorm

I appreciate your effort to verbalize this, and I'm glad you did post because I find this sort of stuff fascinating.

Thanks.

This original post brings a certain mild misery to me, to be stirring up mischief through slave morality is cute, but altogether misguided. — Vaskane

Ya know how autistic people tend to focus narrowly on one thing...

I presume
The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas
is still under copyright, so I won't post a link. However, a quick copy and paste and Google will turn up lots of sites hosting pdf copies.

It is very short, and very well worth reading.

3. Quantum cognition and decision theory have shown that information processing in a mind exhibits quantum principles — Hallucinogen

Citation?

If knowledge and memory is also embedded in this momentarily unfolding flux then is there a fact of the matter about being the same as I was 5 minutes ago? After all, to generate the right expressions of memory or knowledge only requires the right momentary states in terms of physical states of my neuronal membranes. Continuity is not necessary and it is questionable whether my brain is ever in the same two states even for similar experiences at different times. — Apustimelogist

Right. Perdurance seems to me a more realistic way of looking at identity.

This whole thread is a case of overreach by the thought police. — unenlightened

Is this meant seriously? If so, it seems like a bizarre reaction to the thread to me.

Take it up with Wittgenstein. — Banno

Why blame him?

Although I am also a visual artist, I cannot see internal images; meaning I cannot invoke a picture of anything like a photograph and examine it like I would a photograph. — Janus

I found this bit of the article I linked particularly interesting:

She explains that deaf people tend to experience the inner voice visually. “They don’t hear the inner voice, but can produce inner language by visualising hand signs, or seeing lip movements,” Loevenbruck says. “It just looks like hand signing really,” agrees Dr Giordon Stark, a 31-year-old researcher from Santa Cruz. Stark is deaf, and communicates using sign language.


His inner voice is a pair of hands signing words, in his brain. “The hands aren’t usually connected to anything,” Stark says. “Once in a while, I see a face.” If Stark needs to remind himself to buy milk, he signs the word “milk” in his brain. Stark didn’t always see his inner voice: he only learned sign language seven years ago (before then, he used oral methods of communication). “I heard my inner voice before then,” he says. “It sounded like a voice that wasn’t mine, or particularly clear to me.”

I don't recall seeing a link in the thread to an article on the experience of an inner voices, so...

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/oct/25/the-last-great-mystery-of-the-mind-meet-the-people-who-have-unusual-or-non-existent-inner-voices

I'm towards the nonexistent inner voice side of things myself. Though I can relate to experiencing an inner voice to some extent, it's not an aspect of my normal experience, let alone something that seems necessary for thought in my experience.

Your argument was that contradictions inevitably occur, and therefore they are not bad. Wounds also inevitably occur. Are they bad? Should they be avoided? Should we apply bandage and salve, or leave them to fester? — Leontiskos

I already said that there is practical value to resolving one's contradictory beliefs. However, it is no more an indication of moral badness to find that one holds contradictory beliefs than it is an indication of moral badness to find that one has been wounded.

It is simply a consequence of having an evolved brain, that develops intuitions in response to the limited evidence/training available to each individual to learn from, that results in fallible humans having conflicting intuitions. Sure ongoing learning, like bodily hygiene, is practically valuable. However, morally judging people for not being omniscient seems more than a tad unreasonable to me. Do you agree?

I don't think you managed to address it at all. Do you believe that we ought not hold contradictory positions, or do you disagree? — Leontiskos

I don't think there is any moral fact of the matter, though there is certainly pragmatic value in continually wiping the mirror.

I don't think you have considered what I proposed seriously enough. (Although understandably it's likely to take some time for you to develop some relevant recognitions.) I recommend looking into Zen for some useful tools for breaking down weakly trained intuitions.

One thing I think might be worth considering, is the way that you yourself have just demonstrated the monkey mindedness I was referring to. Another is your propensity for jumping to conclusions.

Fair warning, I spent the prior 15 years as a regular atheist poster on William Lane Craig's (now shuttered) forum. Here's a thread you might find surprisingly educational:

Does being in a blaming state of mind amount to Monkey Mindedness?

I see the atheist trolls have arrived (↪wonderer1, ↪Joshs). — Leontiskos

Ah, the warm glow of Christian love.

Anyway, I gave a serious response to your question. What do you think?

So maybe I considered moving the bishop and decided to do something else. When I did something else, it was no longer possible. But it was possible when I considered it. Surely? — Ludwig V

Epistemically possible? Sure.

Metaphysically possible? I don't know of any good reason to think so.

I thought some might be interested in this:

https://spectrum.ieee.org/ai-energy-consumption

You are a bad man @Wayfarer - using Chat-GPT so profligately. :razz:

What is being made clear is that it is very easy to get confused between the imagination and the real, and this is because imagination is in use all the time to model and predict the world as it unfolds. — unenlightened

:up:

I'm a bit confused, now, as to what we're disagreeing upon because I thought I had said some fairly sensible things, but it seems not to be clicking. — Moliere

I expect the lack of 'clicking' is mostly a matter of me trying to get by without providing enough details. The point I was hoping to get across was that the role that gamete roulette plays in neurological differences, while for practical purposes invisible (by comparison with say, hair color), is on a whole nother level in determining what it means to be the individual result of the spin of the wheel.

I don't want to go in depth in trying to make a case, but some additional info on my basis for thinking so...

At least a third of the approximately 20,000 different genes that make up the human genome are active (expressed) primarily in the brain. This is the highest proportion of genes expressed in any part of the body. These genes influence the development and function of the brain, and ultimately control how we move, think, feel, and behave.

https://www.ninds.nih.gov/health-information/patient-caregiver-education/brain-basics-genes-work-brain

You god-denying heretic — Joshs

You left off, "and vile thread derailer". :wink:

Do you think it is a moral failure for people to have inconsistent beliefs?
— wonderer1

"Things which we know (or believe) to be bad or evil are things that we know we oughtn't do." We know it is bad or evil to simultaneously hold contradictory propositions, and therefore we know we ought not do so. Whether one wants to call this a moral failure will depend on their definition of moral. I have given two definitions, one which would apply and one which would not.

What do you think? — Leontiskos

I think evil is in the eye of the beholder, in that evil is something our evolved monkey minds tend to project on things in the world. The notion of a HUD, where things which aren't actually part of the world get projected on top of more straightforward perceptions, might help illustrate this notion.

As we social primates do, in the heat of the moment I'm prone to see people as evil and act on the basis of such mental projections. However in this era, where dishing out the law of the jungle is seldom well advised, I think it is generally better to recognize one's mental projection of evil, for the monkey mindedness that it is, and try to achieve a more enlightened perspective. If I am able to step back from seeing red and recognize my projection of evil for what it is, I tend to be able to act in a more productive way.

Contrary to your claim that, "We know it is bad or evil to simultaneously hold contradictory propositions, and therefore we know we ought not do so.", I understand that it is simply an aspect of human learning that we will often find ourselves holding contradictory propositions. It doesn't make much sense to see oneself as evil for exemplifying such a human characteristic. Of course it is valuable to resolve self contradictory beliefs to the extent one is able, but that hardly makes a person with unresolved self contradictions evil.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance: An Excerpt from Collected Essays, First Series

I would say that in the realm of speculative reason there is the law of non-contradiction, which no one directly denies, but which they do indirectly deny. Are we obliged to obey the law of non-contradiction? Yes, I think so... — Leontiskos

Do you think it is a moral failure for people to have inconsistent beliefs?

I don't have any clear idea of your theory of mind, and I don't expect the points I raise to get much traction in the minds of people unable to seriously consider physicalism. However, my point is that individual variation, that might be seen as being on the order of the variation in fingerprints, can have profound effects in the case of the 'wiring' of our brains. Furthermore the idiosyncracies to brain wiring play a huge role in who we are.

For example, consider these two images, where the difference might appear as superficial as that between fingerprints:



I speak from experience in saying that sort of difference has a profound effect on who one is. Of course I understand most people can get away with being blissfully ignorant of how their own idiosyncratic neural wiring results in them being who they are, but such naivete is not an option for me. And I don't have to make it easy for others to remain naive. :wink:

Edit: Image Source - https://autismsciencefoundation.wordpress.com/2015/08/30/minicolumns-autism-and-age-what-it-means-for-people-with-autism/

Maybe our understanding of necessity differs? To my mind if you can switch a part of the code and have the same results then there is not a necessary relationship between code and an organism's identity. Since you can do that -- not in science fiction but in science -- it just doesn't strike me as something I'd call necessary for personal identity. That is I can see it plausible that if I had a different code I could still be the same person in a counter-factual scenario because I don't think identity is necessitated by code. It would depend upon which part of the code was switched -- I could also have a genetic disease due to this, for instance, and I'd say I'm a different person then. But if one base got switched out in an intron then that is a scenario that seems plausible to me to possibly make no difference in the course of my life, and in relation to the topic, for my personal identity. — Moliere

Sure there are possible different genetic codes that result in the same phenotype, but the scenario under consideration here is not one of minimal DNA substitution, but of relatively wide spread differences in DNA resulting from random selection of gametes.

Consider the uniqueness of the fingerprints of siblings.

Regarding the uniqueness of brains:

With our study we were able to confirm that the structure of people's brains is very individual," says Lutz Jäncke on the findings.

"The combination of genetic and non-genetic influences clearly affects not only the functioning of the brain, but also its anatomy.

Like many others here, I can't make much sense of the things you say, and I would have to recommend that you talk to a neuropsycholgist about that.

This can enter into an utterly different direction. My sole contention has been that the empirical sciences - again, which utilize the scientific method - cannot address what value is, this even in principle. — javra

Suppose "value" is a fallacious reification, and instead there is only valuing as a process that occurs. Could science study human valuing?

Copied from the other thread:

I could have fair hair and still be me. I could be six inches shorter than I am and still be me. I could have musical talent as opposed to competence and still be me. Minor changes don't matter. — Ludwig V

I'd think you can only imagine being yourself with such supeficial changes, but what about less obvious, but more profound differences? Suppose the genes this 'alternate you' got resulted in a person with an IQ 40 points lower than yours? Suppose the genes alternate you got resulted in schizophrenia? Would
you think the alternate you to be you in that case?

What's with this categorization? Is there a name for a philosophical study of "mean old people"? — jgill

I propose "curmudgeonlogy".

So we have:

1. Moral sentences are not truth-apt (non-cognitivism), or
2. It is not wrong to eat babies (error theory), or
3. It would not be wrong to eat babies if everyone said so (subjectivism), or
4. It would be wrong to eat babies even if everyone said otherwise (realism) — Michael

5. It's a lot more fun to play with babies than to eat them. (emotivism)

It should be easy for you to explain why I’m on it. You told me you saw a pattern. — NOS4A2

I've got better things to do.

What your comment says to me is that the company I keep in philosophy of science and cognitive science is far removed from your neck of the woods. — Joshs

True, I haven't spent nearly so much time in an ivory tower playing make believe.

Sorry to break it to you, but you really don't know what you are talking about, in describing science. You might as well be telling a fairy tale.