I don’t think there’s a difference between the human sense of logic and the other senses, I agree with you there. Just as it’s impossible to tell whether or not you’re a brain in a vat, it’s also impossible to tell whether or not you’re insane. Every argument you use to disprove the statement will depend on the idea that your observations or thought processes are valid, which is exactly what you’re trying to prove, and circular arguments are flawed. This doesn’t mean that logic isn’t real, it just means that we can’t interpret the world in any terms except logical ones. The logical ones might still be right, it’s just that we can never know that. You might enjoy reading David Hume, he writes about similar sorts of puzzles.
It doesn’t matter whether or not logic works, or whether reality is really “real”. Regardless of whether I’m a brain in a vat, a computer simulation, or just another one of Chuang Tzu’s dreams, I am what I am. Why should anyone worry about abstract sophistries, when they have an actual life to live? There are things in the world that are enjoyable, I think, and the world seems to work in certain ways that correspond to logic, I think, and that’s perfectly acceptable to me. The “truth” of existence, external to the truth of my everyday life, is not something that I’m interested in at all. The people I love and the experiences I’ve had matter to me, regardless of what’s going on in the realm of metaphysics.
I don’t quite understand what you’re saying about vitalism. I don’t know what the word “life” means if it starts to refer to everything, which makes the idea of a universe where everything is alive seem silly. There’s not really any test we could do to tell whether or not the universe is alive, a dead universe and an alive one would look and act exactly the same, so there’s no reason to think about it. Using metaphors to explain the universe is nice for simplifying new concepts, but we shouldn’t confuse the metaphor for the universe itself.
I’m not really in the mood for discussing literature or trying my hand at amateur psychoanalysis, I’ll leave that last question for someone else to try their hand at, if they decide they want to.
I think the sequences will help you out. I recommend that you start with the sequence on words and language, and then tackle metaethics. It could be a lot of work, but they make an interesting read and are very amusing at times. Regardless, we’re glad you’re here!
Just as it’s impossible to tell whether or not you’re a brain in a vat, it’s also impossible to tell whether or not you’re insane.
Well, it’s possible to tell that I’m insane in particular ways. For example, I’ve had the experience of reasoning my way to the conclusion that certain of my experiences were delusional. (This was after I’d suffered traumatic brain damage and was outright hallucinating some of the time.) For example, if syndrome X causes paranoia but not delusions, I can ask other people who know me whether I’m being paranoid and choose to believe them when they say “yes” (even if my strong intuition is that they’re just saying that because they’re part of the conspiracy, on the grounds that my suffering from syndrome X is more likely (from an outside view) than that I’ve discovered an otherwise perfectly concealed conspiracy.
It’s also possible to tell that I’m not suffering from specific forms of insanity. E.g., if nobody tells me I’m being paranoid, and they instead tell me that my belief that I’m being persecuted is consistent with the observations I report, I can be fairly confident that I don’t suffer from syndrome X.
Of course, there might be certain forms of insanity that I can’t tell I’m not suffering from.
The forms of insanity that you can’t tell if you’re suffering from invalidate your interpretation that there are specific kinds of insanity you can rule out, no? Mainly though, I was aware that the example had issues, but I was trying to get a concept across in general terms and didn’t want to muddle my point by getting bogged down in details or clarifications.
The forms of insanity that you can’t tell if you’re suffering from invalidate your interpretation that there are specific kinds of insanity you can rule out, no?
I’m not sure exactly what you mean by invalidating my interpretation. If you mean that, because there are forms of insanity I can’t tell if I’m suffering from, there are therefore no forms of insanity that I can rule out, then no, I don’t think that’s true.
And, please don’t feel obligated to defend assertions you don’t endorse upon reflection.
If you mean that, because there are forms of insanity I can’t tell if I’m suffering from, there are therefore no forms of insanity that I can rule out, then no, I don’t think that’s true.
Well, for example, consider a form of insanity X that leads to paranoia but is not compatible with delusion.
Suppose ask a randomly selected group of psychologists to evaluate whether I’m paranoid and they all report that I’m not.
Now I ask myself, “am I suffering from X?”
I reason as follows:
Given those premises, if I am paranoid, psychologists will probably report that I’m paranoid.
If I’m not delusional and psychologists report I’m paranoid, I will probably experience that report.
I do not experience that report.
Therefore, if I’m not delusional, psychologists probably have not reported that I’m paranoid.
Therefore, if I’m not delusional, I’m probably not paranoid.
If I suffered from X, I would be paranoid but not delusional.
Therefore, I probably don’t suffer from X.
Now, if you want to argue that I still can’t rule out X, because that’s just a probabilistic statement, well, OK. I also can’t rule out that I’m actually a butterfly. In that case, I don’t care whether I can rule something out or not, but I’ll agree with you and tap out here.
But if we agree that probabilistic statements are good enough for our purposes, then I submit that X is a form of insanity I can rule out.
Now, I would certainly agree that for all forms of insanity Y that cause delusions of sanity, I can’t rule out suffering from Y. And I also agree that for all forms of insanity Z that neither cause nor preclude such delusions, I can’t rule out suffering from (Z AND Y), though I can rule out suffering from Z in isolation.
a form of insanity X that leads to paranoia but is not compatible with delusion.
But how would a possibly insane person determine that insanity X is a possible kind of insanity? Or, how would they determine that the Law of Noncontradiction is actually a thing that exists as opposed to some insane sort of delusion?
Now, if you want to argue that I still can’t rule out X, because that’s just a probabilistic statement, well, OK. I also can’t rule out that I’m actually a butterfly. In that case, I don’t care whether I can rule something out or not, but I’ll agree with you and tap out here.
But if we agree that probabilistic statements are good enough for our purposes, then I submit that X is a form of insanity I can rule out.
I was talking about how we should regard unknowable puzzles (ignore them, mostly), like the butterfly thing, so I thought it was clear that I’ve been speaking in terms of possibilities this entire time. Obviously I’m not actually thinking that I’m insane. If I were, that’d just be crazy of me.
Also, this approach presumes that your understanding of the way probabilities work and of the existence of probability at all is accurate. Using the concept of probability to justify your position here is just a very sneaky sort of circular argument (unintentional, clearly, I don’t mean anything rude by this).
how would a possibly insane person determine that insanity X is a possible kind of insanity?
Perhaps they couldn’t. I’m not sure what that has to do with anything.
Also, this approach presumes that your understanding of the way probabilities work and of the existence of probability at all is accurate. Using the concept of probability to justify your position here is just a very sneaky sort of circular argument
Sure. If I’m wrong about how probability works, then I might be wrong about whether I can rule out having X-type insanity (and also might be wrong about whether I can rule out being a butterfly).
Perhaps they couldn’t. I’m not sure what that has to do with anything.
I didn’t think that your argument could function on even a probabilistic level without the assumption that X-insanity is an objectively real type of insanity. On second thought, I think your argument functions just as well as it would have otherwise.
If it’s not an objectively real type of insanity, then I can certainly rule out the possibility that I suffer from it. If it is, then the assumption is justified.
I raised this pov of logic (reason or rationality when applied) because I saw a piece that correlates training reason with muscle training. If logic is categorical similar to a sense then treat it metaphorically as such, I think. Improving one’s senses is a little different than training a muscle and is a more direct simile. Then there is the question of what is logic sensing? Sight perceives what we call light, so logic is perceiving ‘the order’ of things? The eventual line of thinking starts questioning the relationship of logic to intuition. I advocate the honing of intuition, but it is identical in process to improving one’s reason. The gist being that intuition picks up on the same object that logic eventually describes, like the part of vision which detects movement in the field that is only detailed once the focal point is moved upon it.
As for vitalism, the life I speak of is to extend one’s understanding of biological life—a self-directing organism—to see stars as having the same potential. The behavior of stars, and the universal structure is constrained in the imagination to be subject to the laws of physics and the metaphor for a star in this frame is a fire, which is lit and burns according to predictable rules regarding combustion. The alternative is to imagine that the stars are the dogs, upon which the earth is a flea, and we are mites upon it. Why does this matter? I suppose it is just one of those world-view things which I think dictates how people feel about their existence. “We live in a dead universe subject to laws external to our being” predicates a view which sees external authority as natural and dismisses the vitality within all points which manifest this ‘life’. I think the metaphor for the universe is closely tied to the ethos of the culture, so I raised this question.
I’m not sure what you mean by “self-directing”. As I see it, “life” is yet another physical process, like “combustion” or “crystallization” or “nuclear fusion”. Life is probably a more complex process than these other ones, but it’s not categorically different from them. An amoeba’s motion is directed, to be sure, but so is the motion of a falling rock.
An amoeba acts on its environment where a rock behaves according to extrernal force. Life also has the characteristic of reproduction which is not how processes like combustion or fusion begin or continue. There are attempts to create both biological life from naught and AI research has a goal which could be characterized as making something that is alive vs a dead machine—a conscious robot not a car. I recognize that life is chemical processes, but I, and I think the sciences are divided this way, a categorical difference between chemistry and biology. My position is that physics and chemistry, eg, do not study a driving component of reality—that which drives life. If biological life is to be called >>complexity of basic chemical processes then what drives the level of complexity to increase?
Is there a thread or some place where your position on life is expounded upon? If life is to be framed as a complex process on a spectrum of processes I could understand, provided the definition of complexity is made and the spectrum reflects observations. In fact, spectrums seem to me to be more fitting maps than categories, but I am unaware of a spectrum that defines complexity to encompass both combustion and life.
An amoeba acts on its environment where a rock behaves according to extrernal force.
The rock acts on its environment as well. For example, it could hold up other rocks. Once the rock falls, it can dislodge more rocks, or strike sparks. If it falls into a river or a stream, the rock could alter its course… etc., etc. Living organisms can affect their environments in different ways, but I see this as a difference in degree, not in kind.
Life also has the characteristic of reproduction which is not how processes like combustion or fusion begin or continue.
Why is this important ? All kinds of physical processes proceed in different ways; for example, combustion can release a massive amount of heat in a short period of time, whereas life cannot. So what ?
...as making something that is alive vs a dead machine—a conscious robot not a car.
Are we talking about life, or consciousness ? Trees are alive, but they are not conscious. Of course, I personally believe that consciousness is just another physical process, so maybe it doesn’t matter.
My position is that physics and chemistry, eg, do not study a driving component of reality—that which drives life.
Technically they do not, biology does that (by building upon the discoveries of physics and chemistry), but I’m not sure why you think this is important.
then what drives the level of complexity to increase ?
I don’t think that complexity of living organisms always increases.
Is there a thread or some place where your position on life is expounded upon?
Well, you could start with those parts of the Sequences that deal with Reductionism . I don’t agree with everything in the Sequences, but that still seems like a good start.
As for vitalism, the life I speak of is to extend one’s understanding of biological life—a self-directing organism—to see stars as having the same potential.
I don’t believe that even biological life is self-directing. Additionally, I don’t understand how extending one’s understanding of biological life to everything can even happen. If you expand the concept of life to include everything then the concept of life becomes meaningless. Personally, whether the universe is alive, or not, it’s all the same to me.
The behavior of stars, and the universal structure is constrained in the imagination to be subject to the laws of physics and the metaphor for a star in this frame is a fire, which is lit and burns according to predictable rules regarding combustion.
When you say that this behavior is “constrained in the imagination”, you’re not trying to imply that we’re controlling or maintaining those constraints with our thoughts in any way, are you? That doesn’t make sense because I am not telekinetic. How would you know that what you’re saying is even true, as opposed to some neat sounding thing that you made up with no evidence? What shows that your claims are true?
The alternative is to imagine that the stars are the dogs, upon which the earth is a flea, and we are mites upon it. Why does this matter? I suppose it is just one of those world-view things which I think dictates how people feel about their existence.
If this is just an abstract metaphor, I’ve been confused. If so, I would have liked you to label it differently.
I don’t understand why vitalism would make the universe seem like a better place to live. I’m also reluctant to label anything true for purposes other than its truth. Even if vitalism would make the universe seem like a better place to live, if our universe is not alive, then it doesn’t make sense to believe in it. Belief is not a choice. If you acknowledge that the universe isn’t alive then you lose the ability to believe that the universe is alive, unless you’re okay with just blatantly contradicting yourself.
“We live in a dead universe subject to laws external to our being” predicates a view which sees external authority as natural and dismisses the vitality within all points which manifest this ‘life’. I think the metaphor for the universe is closely tied to the ethos of the culture, so I raised this question.
I don’t understand why you think determinism is bad. I like it. It’s useful, and seems true.
You say that your view says that life is the source of the way things behave. Other than the label and the mysteriousness of its connotations, what distinguishes this from determinism? If it’s not determinism, then aren’t you just contending that randomness is the cause of all events? That seems unlikely to me, but even if it is the case, why would viewing people as controlled by “life” and mysterious randomness be a better worldview than determinism? I prefer predictability, as it’s a prerequisite for meaning and context, as well as pragmatically awesome.
Hiya!
I don’t think there’s a difference between the human sense of logic and the other senses, I agree with you there. Just as it’s impossible to tell whether or not you’re a brain in a vat, it’s also impossible to tell whether or not you’re insane. Every argument you use to disprove the statement will depend on the idea that your observations or thought processes are valid, which is exactly what you’re trying to prove, and circular arguments are flawed. This doesn’t mean that logic isn’t real, it just means that we can’t interpret the world in any terms except logical ones. The logical ones might still be right, it’s just that we can never know that. You might enjoy reading David Hume, he writes about similar sorts of puzzles.
It doesn’t matter whether or not logic works, or whether reality is really “real”. Regardless of whether I’m a brain in a vat, a computer simulation, or just another one of Chuang Tzu’s dreams, I am what I am. Why should anyone worry about abstract sophistries, when they have an actual life to live? There are things in the world that are enjoyable, I think, and the world seems to work in certain ways that correspond to logic, I think, and that’s perfectly acceptable to me. The “truth” of existence, external to the truth of my everyday life, is not something that I’m interested in at all. The people I love and the experiences I’ve had matter to me, regardless of what’s going on in the realm of metaphysics.
I don’t quite understand what you’re saying about vitalism. I don’t know what the word “life” means if it starts to refer to everything, which makes the idea of a universe where everything is alive seem silly. There’s not really any test we could do to tell whether or not the universe is alive, a dead universe and an alive one would look and act exactly the same, so there’s no reason to think about it. Using metaphors to explain the universe is nice for simplifying new concepts, but we shouldn’t confuse the metaphor for the universe itself.
I’m not really in the mood for discussing literature or trying my hand at amateur psychoanalysis, I’ll leave that last question for someone else to try their hand at, if they decide they want to.
I think the sequences will help you out. I recommend that you start with the sequence on words and language, and then tackle metaethics. It could be a lot of work, but they make an interesting read and are very amusing at times. Regardless, we’re glad you’re here!
Well, it’s possible to tell that I’m insane in particular ways. For example, I’ve had the experience of reasoning my way to the conclusion that certain of my experiences were delusional. (This was after I’d suffered traumatic brain damage and was outright hallucinating some of the time.) For example, if syndrome X causes paranoia but not delusions, I can ask other people who know me whether I’m being paranoid and choose to believe them when they say “yes” (even if my strong intuition is that they’re just saying that because they’re part of the conspiracy, on the grounds that my suffering from syndrome X is more likely (from an outside view) than that I’ve discovered an otherwise perfectly concealed conspiracy.
It’s also possible to tell that I’m not suffering from specific forms of insanity. E.g., if nobody tells me I’m being paranoid, and they instead tell me that my belief that I’m being persecuted is consistent with the observations I report, I can be fairly confident that I don’t suffer from syndrome X.
Of course, there might be certain forms of insanity that I can’t tell I’m not suffering from.
The forms of insanity that you can’t tell if you’re suffering from invalidate your interpretation that there are specific kinds of insanity you can rule out, no? Mainly though, I was aware that the example had issues, but I was trying to get a concept across in general terms and didn’t want to muddle my point by getting bogged down in details or clarifications.
I’m not sure exactly what you mean by invalidating my interpretation. If you mean that, because there are forms of insanity I can’t tell if I’m suffering from, there are therefore no forms of insanity that I can rule out, then no, I don’t think that’s true.
And, please don’t feel obligated to defend assertions you don’t endorse upon reflection.
Why not?
Well, for example, consider a form of insanity X that leads to paranoia but is not compatible with delusion.
Suppose ask a randomly selected group of psychologists to evaluate whether I’m paranoid and they all report that I’m not.
Now I ask myself, “am I suffering from X?”
I reason as follows:
Given those premises, if I am paranoid, psychologists will probably report that I’m paranoid.
If I’m not delusional and psychologists report I’m paranoid, I will probably experience that report.
I do not experience that report.
Therefore, if I’m not delusional, psychologists probably have not reported that I’m paranoid.
Therefore, if I’m not delusional, I’m probably not paranoid.
If I suffered from X, I would be paranoid but not delusional.
Therefore, I probably don’t suffer from X.
Now, if you want to argue that I still can’t rule out X, because that’s just a probabilistic statement, well, OK. I also can’t rule out that I’m actually a butterfly. In that case, I don’t care whether I can rule something out or not, but I’ll agree with you and tap out here.
But if we agree that probabilistic statements are good enough for our purposes, then I submit that X is a form of insanity I can rule out.
Now, I would certainly agree that for all forms of insanity Y that cause delusions of sanity, I can’t rule out suffering from Y. And I also agree that for all forms of insanity Z that neither cause nor preclude such delusions, I can’t rule out suffering from (Z AND Y), though I can rule out suffering from Z in isolation.
But how would a possibly insane person determine that insanity X is a possible kind of insanity? Or, how would they determine that the Law of Noncontradiction is actually a thing that exists as opposed to some insane sort of delusion?
I was talking about how we should regard unknowable puzzles (ignore them, mostly), like the butterfly thing, so I thought it was clear that I’ve been speaking in terms of possibilities this entire time. Obviously I’m not actually thinking that I’m insane. If I were, that’d just be crazy of me.
Also, this approach presumes that your understanding of the way probabilities work and of the existence of probability at all is accurate. Using the concept of probability to justify your position here is just a very sneaky sort of circular argument (unintentional, clearly, I don’t mean anything rude by this).
Perhaps they couldn’t. I’m not sure what that has to do with anything.
Sure. If I’m wrong about how probability works, then I might be wrong about whether I can rule out having X-type insanity (and also might be wrong about whether I can rule out being a butterfly).
I didn’t think that your argument could function on even a probabilistic level without the assumption that X-insanity is an objectively real type of insanity. On second thought, I think your argument functions just as well as it would have otherwise.
If it’s not an objectively real type of insanity, then I can certainly rule out the possibility that I suffer from it. If it is, then the assumption is justified.
Thanks for the welcome.
I raised this pov of logic (reason or rationality when applied) because I saw a piece that correlates training reason with muscle training. If logic is categorical similar to a sense then treat it metaphorically as such, I think. Improving one’s senses is a little different than training a muscle and is a more direct simile. Then there is the question of what is logic sensing? Sight perceives what we call light, so logic is perceiving ‘the order’ of things? The eventual line of thinking starts questioning the relationship of logic to intuition. I advocate the honing of intuition, but it is identical in process to improving one’s reason. The gist being that intuition picks up on the same object that logic eventually describes, like the part of vision which detects movement in the field that is only detailed once the focal point is moved upon it.
As for vitalism, the life I speak of is to extend one’s understanding of biological life—a self-directing organism—to see stars as having the same potential. The behavior of stars, and the universal structure is constrained in the imagination to be subject to the laws of physics and the metaphor for a star in this frame is a fire, which is lit and burns according to predictable rules regarding combustion. The alternative is to imagine that the stars are the dogs, upon which the earth is a flea, and we are mites upon it. Why does this matter? I suppose it is just one of those world-view things which I think dictates how people feel about their existence. “We live in a dead universe subject to laws external to our being” predicates a view which sees external authority as natural and dismisses the vitality within all points which manifest this ‘life’. I think the metaphor for the universe is closely tied to the ethos of the culture, so I raised this question.
Thanks for your thoughtful reply.
I’m not sure what you mean by “self-directing”. As I see it, “life” is yet another physical process, like “combustion” or “crystallization” or “nuclear fusion”. Life is probably a more complex process than these other ones, but it’s not categorically different from them. An amoeba’s motion is directed, to be sure, but so is the motion of a falling rock.
An amoeba acts on its environment where a rock behaves according to extrernal force. Life also has the characteristic of reproduction which is not how processes like combustion or fusion begin or continue. There are attempts to create both biological life from naught and AI research has a goal which could be characterized as making something that is alive vs a dead machine—a conscious robot not a car. I recognize that life is chemical processes, but I, and I think the sciences are divided this way, a categorical difference between chemistry and biology. My position is that physics and chemistry, eg, do not study a driving component of reality—that which drives life. If biological life is to be called >>complexity of basic chemical processes then what drives the level of complexity to increase?
Is there a thread or some place where your position on life is expounded upon? If life is to be framed as a complex process on a spectrum of processes I could understand, provided the definition of complexity is made and the spectrum reflects observations. In fact, spectrums seem to me to be more fitting maps than categories, but I am unaware of a spectrum that defines complexity to encompass both combustion and life.
The rock acts on its environment as well. For example, it could hold up other rocks. Once the rock falls, it can dislodge more rocks, or strike sparks. If it falls into a river or a stream, the rock could alter its course… etc., etc. Living organisms can affect their environments in different ways, but I see this as a difference in degree, not in kind.
Why is this important ? All kinds of physical processes proceed in different ways; for example, combustion can release a massive amount of heat in a short period of time, whereas life cannot. So what ?
Are we talking about life, or consciousness ? Trees are alive, but they are not conscious. Of course, I personally believe that consciousness is just another physical process, so maybe it doesn’t matter.
Technically they do not, biology does that (by building upon the discoveries of physics and chemistry), but I’m not sure why you think this is important.
I don’t think that complexity of living organisms always increases.
Well, you could start with those parts of the Sequences that deal with Reductionism . I don’t agree with everything in the Sequences, but that still seems like a good start.
I don’t believe that even biological life is self-directing. Additionally, I don’t understand how extending one’s understanding of biological life to everything can even happen. If you expand the concept of life to include everything then the concept of life becomes meaningless. Personally, whether the universe is alive, or not, it’s all the same to me.
When you say that this behavior is “constrained in the imagination”, you’re not trying to imply that we’re controlling or maintaining those constraints with our thoughts in any way, are you? That doesn’t make sense because I am not telekinetic. How would you know that what you’re saying is even true, as opposed to some neat sounding thing that you made up with no evidence? What shows that your claims are true?
If this is just an abstract metaphor, I’ve been confused. If so, I would have liked you to label it differently.
I don’t understand why vitalism would make the universe seem like a better place to live. I’m also reluctant to label anything true for purposes other than its truth. Even if vitalism would make the universe seem like a better place to live, if our universe is not alive, then it doesn’t make sense to believe in it. Belief is not a choice. If you acknowledge that the universe isn’t alive then you lose the ability to believe that the universe is alive, unless you’re okay with just blatantly contradicting yourself.
I don’t understand why you think determinism is bad. I like it. It’s useful, and seems true.
You say that your view says that life is the source of the way things behave. Other than the label and the mysteriousness of its connotations, what distinguishes this from determinism? If it’s not determinism, then aren’t you just contending that randomness is the cause of all events? That seems unlikely to me, but even if it is the case, why would viewing people as controlled by “life” and mysterious randomness be a better worldview than determinism? I prefer predictability, as it’s a prerequisite for meaning and context, as well as pragmatically awesome.
I really do strongly suggest that you read some of these: http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Sequences#Major_Sequences
You seem to be confusing your feelings with arguments, at some points in your comments.