Simply because you don’t share your boss’ motor-cortex. You are responsible for what you do while your boss is responsible for what he does. It’s simple physics and biology. — NOS4A2

It is simplistic physics and biology that treats humanity as if each individual human is her own pocket universe, and ignores the interactions between people which result in us changing each other's thinking to some degree.

Perhaps it is misguided on my part, but I am loath to provide you with knowledge (power) of such interactions, due to your general lack of understanding of, and empathy for, people. So don't expect me to argue the point.

...one thing a picture is entirely incapable of depicting is that it is true. A picture can show how things might be, and things may indeed be that way, but the picture cannot include itself in its depiction and vouch for its own accuracy. — Srap Tasmaner

I agree that a picture is not capable of depicting that it is true. However, I question the practical import of that to some extent.

In my experience it can be important for me to recognize whether a picture is consistent with my observation of the way things go in the world. (My profile picture can serve as an example of a picture that is 'not consistent' with the way things go in the world.)

Sketching connections — Pierre-Normand/ChatGPT o1

Interesting (to me anyway) that this suggests a 'visuo-spatial' element to Chat GPT o1's process.

We don't have any specific reason to choose one option over another one when we have doubts. Therefore, our decision is free* in this case. — MoK

Would you say that having freedom is dependent on being ignorant about some things?

The brain is however a deterministic entity so it cannot freely decide when there is doubt. — MoK

There are multiple senses of the word "indeterminism" and indeterminism in the sense discussed in the following article is relevant here:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/300312282_Indeterminism_in_System_Science

You will only be able to see a very brief abstract if you aren't signed into ResearchGate, but here is an excerpt from the introduction:

It is my strong belief, expressed in an earlier paper (Elstob 1984), that the assumptions of
deterministic metaphysics will not yield a full understanding of the nature of mind. I suggest that what we need to do is develop a strong new metaphysics that places indeterminism in a central position. I see indeterminism as a key aspect of becoming in nature, of emergent processes, and of creative evolution. I believe that a metaphysics of indeterminism can be constructed that will give understanding as valuable as those produced from deterministic ideas, even though – because of the indeterminism – we cannot get from it the same degree of predictive and manipulative command of nature that determinism offers. I do not wish the overthrow of determinism, but I do want to see more clearly in what contexts it is properly applied. I want to see determinism and indeterminism both properly understood as real aspects of the world.

Therefore, there must exist an entity, the so-called mind, that can freely decide. — MoK

Brains are enormously complex entities that aren't deterministic in the sense that, given complete information about a brain and some rather enormous amount of the environment in which the brain exists, we could make perfect predictions about what will happen in that brain in that environment.

Furthermore, the things we do arise from a combination of conscious thought and subconscious thought (or subconscious information processing if you prefer).

So I disagree that we need to dualistically posit a mind as you suggest.

Language is the shadow cast by the mind into the world. People often mistaken the shadows for the light or simply think the shadows can tell them more about the light than the light itself. — I like sushi

:up:

The paradox arises because we had to trust that scientific (or more generally empirical) knowledge that we have sensibility and representative faculties to begin with (which is also mediated fundamentally by our a priori knowledge)—so we are trusting that our experience can give us knowledge of the things-in-themselves to some extent even though we thereafter must conclude we have no knowledge of the things-in-themselves.

Do you see what I mean? — Bob Ross

I'd say I have "some degree of incomplete knowledge" of what you mean. :wink:

I think you are using a definition of "knowledge" that I would find unreasonably rigid, and as a result you see a paradox where there is none, but I'm not wanting to go into that in depth, and others here are likely better equipped than I to discuss that with you, so I'm going to bow out of the discussion. At least for a time.

Firstly, the phenomena are a result of the cognition of sensations and not things-in-themselves; and those sensations are limited by our sensibility. — Bob Ross

I'd suggest seeking scientific understanding of what the sensations are a result of. It seems you might need some understanding of the role the things themselves play in your experience of sensations.

What are the details of the light that reflected off the thing and into your eye?

Do you see consideration of such matters off limits for this discussion. If so, might it be that you are trying to understand things in overly simplistic terms?

Secondly, any given phenomena stripped of the a prior means of intuiting and cognizing it is left perfectly unintelligible... — Bob Ross

Translating into wondererese yields, "If the functioning of a person's brain is disabled, the person won't have intelligible thoughts." My response to my interpretation is, "Right. And???"

I'm afraid you would need to elaborate for me to understand what you see as a problem.

How do we reconcile these problems as indirect realists that accept that our conscious experience is representational? — Bob Ross

Drop the black and white thinking in the sentence below...

Kant begins with the presupposition that our experience is representational and proceeds to correctly conclude that knowledge of the things-in-themselves is thusly impossible. — Bob Ross

..and recognize that we can have some degree of incomplete knowledge of things-in-themselves?

The hardest part for me is language. — Vera Mont

I can see how that would be difficult. Keeping multiple made up languages in my head simultaneously sounds especially difficult.

I just came in here for a brief respite from fighting over animal intelligence. — Vera Mont

Think you can escape so easily huh? :wink:

Do you know how much research and meticulous planning goes into inventing a planet? Damn real, it becomes a character: it haunts your dreams for months on end. — Vera Mont

Are there any particular aspects of creating a planet that stand out?

I once wrote a paper on the use of invented mythology and folklore in works of fiction like Watership Down and LeGuin's Left Hand of Darkness, and the richness that can be added to a story by such invented mythologies and folklores. Just that one aspect of inventing a fictional world sounds exhausting to me.

Mine is a perfectly reasonable paraphrasing of Plantinga’s argument. — Wayfarer

No. You seem confused, and are mixing bits of arguments against physicalism into your 'paraphrase'. The EAAN isn't an argument against mind/body physicalism.

On page 313 of Where the Conflict Really Lies Plantinga writes:

The basic idea of my argument could be put (a bit crudely) as follows. First, the probability of our cognitive faculties being reliable, given naturalism and evolution, is low. (To put it a bit inaccurately but suggestively, if naturalism and evolution were both true, our cognitive faculties would very likely not be reliable.) But then according to the second premise of my argument, if I believe both naturalism and evolution, I have a defeater for my intuitive assumption that my cognitive faculties are reliable. If I have a defeater for that belief, however, then I have a defeater for any belief I take to be produced by my cognitive faculties. That means that I have a defeater for my belief that naturalism and evolution are true. So my belief that naturalism and evolution are true gives me a defeater for that very belief; that belief shoots itself in the foot and is self-referentially incoherent; therefore I cannot rationally accept it. And if one can’t accept both naturalism and evolution, that pillar of current science, then there is serious conflict between naturalism and science.

Plantinga is not making an argument against physicalism. In fact Plantinga thinks everyone has a God detector organ. (Although sadly, yours and mine are broken.)

In Calvin's view, there is no reasonable non-belief:

"That there exists in the human mind and indeed by natural instinct, some sense of Deity [sensus divinitatis], we hold to be beyond dispute, since God himself, to prevent any man from pretending ignorance, has endued all men with some idea of his Godhead…. …this is not a doctrine which is first learned at school, but one as to which every man is, from the womb, his own master; one which nature herself allows no individual to forget.[2]"

Jonathan Edwards, the 18th-century American Calvinist preacher and theologian, claimed that while every human being has been granted the capacity to know God, a sense of divinity, successful use of these capacities requires an attitude of "true benevolence".[citation needed] Analytic philosopher Alvin Plantinga of the University of Notre Dame posits a similar modified form of the sensus divinitatis in his Reformed epistemology whereby all have the sense, only it does not work properly in some humans, due to sin's noetic effects.

If you have a Kindle, I can loan out my Kindle copy of the book so that you don't have to just pretend to know what you are talking about.

Again, it doesn't address the evolutionary argument against naturalism. He doesn't say that we're incapable of communicating, or that we can't convey information by speaking to one another. — Wayfarer

Plantinga doesn't consider the role of communication at all. That is what disqualifies his argument from serious consideration as an argument against naturalism.

The argument is that naturalism maintains that mental events such as beliefs are the result of natural (e.g. neurological) causes that can be explained by the principles of natural science (such as neurology) - in other words, instances of efficient causation, where one event (cause) brings about another event (effect) in accordance with physical or natural laws. In this view, mental states, including beliefs, are determined by physical processes in the brain, which are themselves the result of evolutionary pressures and biological mechanisms. Whereas, reasoned inference works by different principles, relying on the relationship between propositions where the truth of one proposition logically necessitates the truth of another. — Wayfarer

You are conflating other stuff with Plantinga's argument. It would probably be better for you to stick to quoting actual passages written by Plantinga, or start arguing for your own version and we can ignore Plantinga.

Your objection doesn’t address the argument. — Wayfarer

It addresses this gloss on your part:

Plantinga argues that if both naturalism and evolution are true, then the probability that our cognitive faculties are reliable is low. — Wayfarer

If you want to provide a more fleshed out account of this aspect of Plantinga's argument, I'll address that. In the meantime...

As I said, Plantinga doesn't consider the role of communication among members of a social species in making his case. So Plantinga's claim is that:

P(R|N&E) is low
(I.e. the probability that our cognitive faculties are reliable given naturalism and evolution is low.)

However, in order for Plantinga to address a scientifically informed position regarding the reliability of our cognitive faculties he needs to address a more complex scenario than he actually does. We can say that to be taken seriously Plantinga needs to address:

P(R|N&E&S)
(The probability that our cognitive faculties are reliable given naturalism and evolution and the evolution occured in a social species.)

However, in order to make that case Plantinga would need to establish that truth conveying communication occurring amongst members of the social species would do nothing to increase the reliability of the cognitive faculties of members of that species, as compared to being a feral member of the species without social interaction.

It's pretty ironic that an educator like Plantinga, needs to ignore the possibility of members of a social species educating each other and passing down culture, in order for his argument to superficially appear to work.

But you did say that Thomas Nagel... — Wayfarer

If you are going to claim that I said something, then please have the intellectual integrity to quote what I actually said, rather than make up stories of what I said to suit the narrative you are trying to gaslight people into believing.

Can you cite evidence from any version of the EAAN that considers evolution occurring within a social species? Can you recognize that failure to think through the implications of evolution occurring within a social species results in the failure of the EAAN to make the case it claims to?

Suppose evolution alone only resulted in something like a feral human child that you might barely call rational, but if the individual members of that species were raised in a culture with other members of the same species the result was members of that species going to the moon.

Where does Plantinga show any evidence of having considered the role of cuture?
— wonderer1

None of that is relevant, though. — Wayfarer

Sure it is relevant, if Plantinga hopes to do more than beat on a staw man account of naturalistic evolution.

Can you help Plantinga out, by explaining why the species under consideration is a social species for which generally communicating truths is of no more adaptive value than generally communicating falsehoods?

From the jacket cover of that title:

This intriguing line of argument raises issues of importance to epistemologists and to philosophers of mind, of religion, and of science. — Wayfarer

I agree the argument raises such issues, but that is a different matter than whether it merits being taken seriously as an argument against naturalism.

No, you said he was a crank. That is not a word I put in your mouth. — Wayfarer

So, an academically-qualified professor of philosophy, but Christian, therefore a crank, right? — Wayfarer

You asked a loaded question, insinuating that what is in bold is my thinking.

Anyway, the EAAN is a crank argument because it ignores many issues that were previously brought up in this thread.

Can you cite evidence from any version of the EAAN that considers evolution occurring within a social species? Can you recognize that failure to think through the implications of evolution occurring within a social species results in the failure of the EAAN to make the case it claims to?

Suppose evolution alone only resulted in something like a feral human child that you might barely call rational, but if the individual members of that species were raised in a culture with other members of the same species the result was members of that species going to the moon.

Where does Plantinga show any evidence of having considered the role of cuture?

Jeez! You guys get a room, will ya? — creativesoul

:razz:

So, an academically-qualified professor of philosophy, but Christian, therefore a crank, right? — Wayfarer

I didn't say anything about Plantinga being a Christian, and I'd like to hope you might want to refrain from putting words in my mouth like that. Do you think that you can?

Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism is a crank argument Do you think academically qualified professors of philosophy are somehow immune to being cranks?

Of course, if you want to argue for the EAAN I'd be happy to point out many ways that it is a crank argument.

It's very common for religious aplologists to engage in such propagandizing, and I'm done with biting my tongue when Wayfarer is doing it.
— wonderer1
Thank you for telling me. But I think I'll make up my own mind, if you don't mind. — Ludwig V

I wouldn't have it any other way. It seems as if you've taken something I said as suggesting otherwise, but if so, I don't understand what you interpreted that way.

Is there any chance Nagel's perspective is as scientifically well informed as that of anyone here?
— Patterner
If Nagel is not scientifically well informed, he is as well informed as me. In other respects also, I would very much like to be able to adopt Nagel's perspective. He's a much better philosopher than me. Yet I still disagree with many of his opinions, especially with regard to bats. — Ludwig V

I suppose I should have said "well informed in a way commensurate with the claims he makes". Nagel has fallen in with the cranks at the Discovery Institute, the crank Alvin Plantinga, etc. I don't see any reason to consider Nagel a better philosopher than you. How do you define better?

Language is a barrier unto itself, it is a performance, a recreation of the real in way that we hope are intelligible to others, it is not the real itself and therefore we can express the whole of what we feel and cracks begin to appear in our understanding. — Dorrian

Welcome to the forum.

I agree with a lot of what you say, but I'm not really understanding this. Should the "can" which I have highlighted be "can't"?

If so, what cracks in our understanding are you referring to?

I don't know how much science Nagel knows, but do you really mean to say that any perspective is not scientifically well-informed is not worth having? That's a very big assumption. — Ludwig V

I'm not saying that at all, I'm just pointing out that Nagel's perspective is not a scientifically well informed perspective, and that @Wayfarer tries to use Nagel's perspective to besmirch the perspective of people unlike Nagel.

It's very common for religious aplologists to engage in such propagandizing, and I'm done with biting my tongue when Wayfarer is doing it.

:halo:

Thomas Nagel has an interesting essay I often refer to, Evolutionary Naturalism and the Fear of Religion. I've mentioned it a few times on the forum, it's generaly not well received, but I find it very insightful. (Nagel is not pushing a religious barrow, he's an avowed atheist but one with the chutzpah to call scientific materialism into question.) — Wayfarer

Thomas Nagel is a scientific ignoramus and doesn't have a perspective based on being scientifically well informed. Your attempts to smear scientifically informed people with Nagel's emotional issues amount to pushing propaganda on your part.

:up: Fascinating! This seems to confirm what I have always believed: that dogs are capable of deductive inferences, rational thought. — Janus

It occurred to me after you responded, that in that video we have a demonstration of Kahneman's fast and slow thinking occurring in a dog. (And literally fast and literally slow.)

Abiogenesis is simply a theory of how life came from non-life, what’s woo-woo about that ? It’s just a word for a type of process(es) that occurred 3.5 billions of years ago during the inception of life. How can it be supported by science when we’re not privy to the conditions and events that transformed non living matter to living one 3.5 billions of years ago.

In the absence of alternative theories abiogenesis is just a label of how life came from non-life. You may dismiss it as woo-woo but it still remains a valid theory although it doesn’t have the answers of exactly how life came about, you have the right to remain sceptical about it. — kindred

"Hypothesis" would be a more scientifically appropriate word to use than "theory" in the context of discussing abiogenesis.

Instinct and structure are all my dogs need to be so brilliant. — Fire Ologist

I don't know what you have in mind with "structure", and whether it is relevant to the following, but I don't think it reasonable to see what is shown below as merely a matter of instinct.

@Amity

Sorry it has taken me so long to respond. I suppose I was waiting for that question about metaphysical intuition to stop rattling around in my subconscious.

Perhaps not much of a hero worshipper? — Amity

Well, I'm certainly a hero appreciator, but I suppose not much of a worshipper in general.

Interesting to compare. For a quick understanding of the story, perhaps prose is better. It's more direct and not so much of a puzzle. However, it loses something of the compactness and the alliteration and kennings pulled me in at the start: — Amity

It is so interesting and mysterious, the effect that poetic elements seem to have on us.

I once got the following response to a sentence I had written on another forum, "Something about that sentence just makes it feel awesome when you read it out loud, especially the ending. Nice use of words wonderer."

My first thought was something like, "What??? How in the world did what I had said result in that sort of reaction?"

My sentence that was being responded to was, "I'm afraid "self" is too ambiguous a concept on physicalism to expect any clear cut quantification of the accuracy of self referential statements in all conceivable cases."

I had to look at what I had written to figure out that it was probably a matter of the alliteration, which it seems my subconscious had managed to work into the sentence, while consciously I was struggling to express something semantically complex in a succinct way, with no conscious consideration of how it would sound.

Long story short... I like alliteration as well, perhaps more than I know. :smile:

Anyway, back to metaphysical imagination...

I've come to the conclusion that I am intuitively epistemologically opposed to compartmentalizing imagination in such a way that it would make any sense to me to say, "This is metaphysical imagination and this is not." I suppose I see an important part of imagination as being a way of escaping the ruts of unimaginative thinking, and calling some imagination "metaphysical" seems likely to create the sort of boundaries to my thinking that I seek to escape via imagination.

Of course, you are welcome to inspire me to look at things differently. :wink:

Ah Gnomon, have you no sources of narcissistic supply outside of TPF?

Anyway, here's an article on pseudo philosophy:
https://psyche.co/ideas/pseudophilosophy-encourages-confused-self-indulgent-thinking:

An excerpt:

Epistemic unconscientiousness is an essential but not exhaustive component of pseudoscience. To count as pseudoscientific, a belief must also be about some scientific issue, and this is precisely where pseudoscience and pseudophilosophy differ. Just like pseudoscience, pseudophilosophy is defined by a lack of epistemic conscientiousness, but its subject matter is philosophical rather than scientific.

[Emphasis added]

Perhaps another issue worth considering in this thread is, do animals think critically? Do humans think critically? What percent of humans?

Is rationality the result of having culturally acquired skills that improve the reliability of one's thinking?

Why would they need to think exactly the same way we do in order to be considered rational? — Vera Mont

Perhaps "rational" is being equated with "the way I think"? (If only subconsciously.)

Perhaps the point is that uniqueness is not a particularly good basis for jumping to anaturalistic conclusions?

I do go on to suggest that is may be this kind of process that refined our reasoning too. Not sure if you got to that point or lost the will to live listening to me tripping over nearly every word I said — I like sushi

:lol:

If I was prone to losing the will to live in response to people struggling to articulate their thoughts, I'd have murdered myself a long time ago.

However, at the moment, the desire to maintain my social status as a responsible adult in the eyes of my coworkers is interfering with me watching more.

I've taken the time to watch the first six minutes and "embellishment" comes to mind as a pertinent word for what you are getting at.

And I would say yes, I think the human tendency towards embellishment has played a large role in the development of religious claims. I think we naturally develop subconscious recognition of the sorts of things that make stories more interesting, and this subconscious recognition tends to influence our storytelling whether we are conscious of it or not.

It seems plausible that in a culture without an understanding of a scientific method, and consequently with less recognition of the negative aspects of the human tendency to embellish, embellishment plays a particularly large role in the way beliefs get propagated.

Bart Ehrman's book, How Jesus Became God, goes into this with regards to the development of Christian beliefs.

The question is if intelligence is a property of matter or a thing in itself (which exists of its own) and acts on matter to make it come to life which is what actually happened as we are such intelligence. The other question is whether intelligence preceded the universe or even matter and is a fundamental function of existence itself. — kindred

I'd say there is a lot of good evidence for one option and no good evidence that I know of for the other.

Do you think there is any value in considering the matter with an eye towards what is well evidenced and what isn't?

Life could simply not have arisen, and it would have been far easier in terms of explanation if it hadn’t yet it did, which remains a mystery. — kindred

Well life exists on one planet in the universe and there is good reason to think that life doesn't exist in vastly more places than it does, and that really doesn't seem all that mysterious to me. I think you might find it a lot less mysterious with some study.

Little help?? — Mww

I was attempting to convey a contradiction to the following without using language. (With the irony of using an image with linguistic content thrown in for my own amusement I suppose.)

All representation of thought in humans is linguistic, whether vocal or otherwise. — Mww

So more straightforwardly, isn't a painting (generally) a non-linguistic representation of human thought?

All representation of thought in humans is linguistic, whether vocal or otherwise. — Mww

The chemical component of past trouble concerns me. That does not seem fair to me. A bad experience is bad enough, but to live with it our whole lives just isn't fair. — Athena

And relevant to the thread title, what does an inability to live life free from the effects of such scars say about free will?

Hum, do other animals laugh? — Athena

I've gotten the impression that pigs, at least when young, have a sense of humor. (A mother pig with a litter of piglets, not so much.)

Looks like a republic/democrat divide. — Athena

:rofl: