Logic is evil. Change my mind!
A new discovery in the science of evolution has shown that a logic developed through evolution will never seek to understand the truth, it just learns to maipulate it's environment without a deeper understanding of what it is manipulating: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYp5XuGYqqY&t=997s
This is a real warning: when manipulating the universe around you - even if you do it successfully - you have not the slightest clue what you are really interacting with. (I strongly reccomend watching the video in the link to understand this better)
So my first complaint is that logic pretends to be something that it is not (a universal key to truth - this it is clearly not).
My second complaint relates to the discovery that logic is developed mainly for hunting and is hence predatory in nature (the left brain side that is dedicated to logic is as well the the one which is dedicated to hunting). You can witness this in your thinking: When we do deductive logic we literally try to reduce options so that the truth (aka prey) can't escape anymore and only one option is left. Because only if only one conclusion follows from your premisses the argument is logically correct. This is a bit like cornering a dear: only if no escape option is open you have trapped it.
An evolved predatory logic must be by it's nature remain incapable to:
1. Understand truths that can not be chased and exploited in a physical sense (which come to mind?)
2. Understand things that are not relevant to survival such as what is "the good".
In this sense logic must be a prison that precludes us from seeing a lot of stuff around us.
A further flaw is that you can only maintaint logic thinking by killing other life forms (either by killing them directly or by eating their food away).
Are there any thought shools that attack logic? Is Nirvana for example a state beyond logic?
P.S. During the discussion Hoffmanns conclusion has been seriously contested by a counter-paper and the rest of the discussion is turning in circles. There is a an overhang here in people who defend logic as was to be expected and this means that certain arguments repeat very often. Please only contribute if your counter arguments are either new in respect to the whole discussion or if you are willing to go along - and be it as a thought experiment - that logic is evil and that it has serious limits. In this case and because of the described overhang of pro-logic arguments the likelihood is much higher that your contribution will be original.
This is a real warning: when manipulating the universe around you - even if you do it successfully - you have not the slightest clue what you are really interacting with. (I strongly reccomend watching the video in the link to understand this better)
So my first complaint is that logic pretends to be something that it is not (a universal key to truth - this it is clearly not).
My second complaint relates to the discovery that logic is developed mainly for hunting and is hence predatory in nature (the left brain side that is dedicated to logic is as well the the one which is dedicated to hunting). You can witness this in your thinking: When we do deductive logic we literally try to reduce options so that the truth (aka prey) can't escape anymore and only one option is left. Because only if only one conclusion follows from your premisses the argument is logically correct. This is a bit like cornering a dear: only if no escape option is open you have trapped it.
An evolved predatory logic must be by it's nature remain incapable to:
1. Understand truths that can not be chased and exploited in a physical sense (which come to mind?)
2. Understand things that are not relevant to survival such as what is "the good".
In this sense logic must be a prison that precludes us from seeing a lot of stuff around us.
A further flaw is that you can only maintaint logic thinking by killing other life forms (either by killing them directly or by eating their food away).
Are there any thought shools that attack logic? Is Nirvana for example a state beyond logic?
P.S. During the discussion Hoffmanns conclusion has been seriously contested by a counter-paper and the rest of the discussion is turning in circles. There is a an overhang here in people who defend logic as was to be expected and this means that certain arguments repeat very often. Please only contribute if your counter arguments are either new in respect to the whole discussion or if you are willing to go along - and be it as a thought experiment - that logic is evil and that it has serious limits. In this case and because of the described overhang of pro-logic arguments the likelihood is much higher that your contribution will be original.
Comments (190)
in a nutshell you need to be able to point out why your logic, point of view is not as flawed as any other otherwise you are just stating that all logic and/or systems of belief are flawed in some way which is pretty much already known by anyone that has studied philosophy for awhile.
Quoting FalseIdentity
I don't know if logic pretends to that, but either way, it clearly is not the universal key to truth. Logic is based upon a gentlemen's agreement regarding it's three fundamental principles. But if you don't agree with any one of those premises, then logic remains the tool for those who do agree.
Quoting FalseIdentity
I don't know about schools, but I have attacked it. I merely use one of the principles of logical argument, placing the burden of proof upon logic to prove it's principles. In other words, I refuse to accept it's premises, as it advises that I should do. It's only response, to date, has been "But I (logic) can't prove a negative" (which means logic is based upon something that can't be proven) or "It's self-evident" (which means logic can't see what it can't see, even if others can. Besides, where is a non-anecdotal lesser proof?).
That's not a "new discovery" but rather a purely theoretical and controversial argument promulgated by Donald Hoffman (a bona fide cognitive scientist, if anyone is wondering).
I am emotionally sure my onw logic is evil too, that is why I started the discussion, after a life of watching what I do when I argue I have a very bad feeling about it.
If our logic is evil, we would not be able to proof that by our logic alone, I absolutely agree with that. Or in other words: It still can be true that all logic is evil without me beeing able to proof that claim logically. The falsifiability is broken, so to say. But the fact alone that I can not proof that logic is good shatters my trust in it. Would you drive a vehicle of which you don't know it is save? I would as well deny that it is necessary to posses logic to make sense of "anything" like you suggest. I guess here we maybe have a definitions problem, because you might define logic as thinking in generall while I define logic as a certain method of thinking (cornering the options). If cornering the options (left brain) is the only mode of thinking what is the right side of the brain doing all the time? Furthermore there is at least one information that you know is true even before you start the intelectual chase we call logic. And this is that you are. Even someone who has full dementia and hence can't use logic is aware in some sense that he is. This outside metrics you are requesting for of what is evil hence could come from truths that come from direct awarness and not from logic. Maybe direct awarness is the same thing as a priori knowledge.
I didn't even notice the video but after watching it it kind of just going over what has been said several times before in different religions, scientific discussions, and/or systems of belief.
What the guy was talking about more or less was covered in Dharmic religions several thousand years ago with with the doctrine of Anekantavada or the doctrine of no-one sidedness:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anekantavada
The doctrine is similar to the child's story of the blind men and the elephants, but the doctrine itself is the fallibility of our own human conciseness as well as any religion or system of beliefs we choose to adhere to.
This sounds very esoteric and it is: but IF (just as a thought experiment) logic is actually evil are some truths not understandable to us because they need to be protected from us? I think of two truths in particular:
1. What is the first cause of the universe.
2. What is consciousness.
Two thoughts 1) Learning to manipulate the environment is what truth is all about. That's all it is. That's not news. 2) Never trust any insight you get from a TED Talk. TED is the People Magazine of the intellect.
Perhaps you have noticed yourself trying to win an argument. That's not in itself evil; it's not even a bar to discovering truth. But if your principal motivation is to win, rather than to seek the truth, you put yourself at risk of practicing sophistry rather than philosophy, or what the rationalist community calls the dark arts.
Being mindful of your motivation is a good thing, but don't throw the baby out with the bath water.
Furthermore if logic is a product of evolution it always wants to win. Evolution would not develope any skill that is not there for winning. I hence think we confuse ourself when we think we don't want to win discussions. However I absolutely agree with you that for some people the need to win is more urgent than for others.
You are right in questioning your own logic given the circumstances you have presented but you can't rely on your emotions to tell you what is "good" or "evil" since they are just as fallible at determining which is one or the other as logic is.
I could go into a complex theory as to what is "good" or "evil" but it might be best to just to leave it as something called a "non-trivia problem" (ie. a problem so complex it might not be solvable) and say that in many ways we are all similar to the blind men trying to "see the elephant" (true nature of reality) but none of us really being that successful due to our human limitations.
Quoting FalseIdentity
In essence "We do what we do because that is the way we do it.". A human cell usually can be seen as an "agent of good" in many ways because it does nearly everything it can for the greater good of the human body. However if it becomes a cancerous cell it is viewed by us as a sort of "agent of evil" even though it has no idea of how it's behavior is now harmful to it's human host and/or why normal cell behavior was helpful. In a similar line of thought many human and/or animal behavior is done without any thought of whether their actions are helpful or harmful to their environment or the planet as a whole. One of the problems about this is that animals can't understand what behaviors are harmful or helpful to those around them. While humans might be smarter than animals there have been plenty of situations of us not knowing the consequences of our actions until after the fact.
In order for someone to declare one action "good" and another "evil" one would need to be able to both ascertain what the consequences of any actions is and rule out that such actions isn't behavior derived from social programming (such as in a healthy cell or healthy environment/family) or a problem created from a defect in their social conditioning (such as in a cancerous cell or from being in a dysfunctional family). Because of such issues and what I explained above why any determination as to whether any action is "good/evil" is a non-trivial problem, it is best to say that any and all of us are fallible in our efforts to know whether something is "good" or "evil" and that because of our fallibility in knowing such things we have to weigh in such problems in whenever we say someone is doing something wrong or right.
If Logic is "evil", hence unacceptable, the only way I could change your mind is via "good" Intuition or Emotion. Would you accept that kind of argument, in place of fallible human reasoning? Perhaps the problem with Platonic Logic is that it is filtered through innate human biases, resulting in cognitive errors. :smile:
There is logic in evil, which makes evil resolute. The premise that logic is evil cannot be true for if it were, evil would have no logic.
Nothing could be greater than evil if logic were evil, nothing could be produced, a mind wouldn't be able to understand.
Excuse me if I come off patronizing, but you give an impression of someone who is not at all familiar with how science is done. What Hoffmann et al. do is what everyone does: they do some research and publish it for their peers to evaluate, tear apart or support. (He also likes to appeal directly to popular media with his unproven theories, which is a crankish thing to do.) Just because the argument has some mathematics doesn't mean that he's provided a "proof." Biology is not a mathematical discipline. Any mathematics in that context would rest on theory and assumptions, and it is that which is mainly in question, not how well he can do mathematical derivations and write computer simulations.
That there is a controversy about it is not an opinion but a fact that you could have found out yourself if you actually did your homework, instead of just watching a youtube video.
This is just a variation on old ideas. Christian apologists (Alvin Plantigna, et al) have argued for decades that if you are a physicalist scientist, then nothing you believe has any connection to truth since humans are just chemicals and matter behaving to an environment and all we call knowledge is just what fosters survival. If human cognitive faculties are tuned to survival rather than truth in the naturalism-evolution model, it follows that there is reason to doubt the veracity of the products of those same faculties, including naturalism and evolution themselves. William Laine Craig runs this argument too.
I am not angry, but I don't respect lazy and incurious people, especially not on a philosophy forum. I have actually looked a bit into this topic, which is more than you have done.
The punchline of the argument is - God exists. If He didn't, we could not rely upon logic, reason, morality, and other absolute universals (which are required and assumed to live in this universe, let alone to debate), and could not exist in a materialist universe where there are no absolute standards or an absolute Lawgiver. (Thanks Wikipedia)
We can see this theme going all the way back to Plato.
That is possible. But it's also possible that, as they say in Maine when asked for directions: "You can't get there from here." I think that it all becomes clear when we die. But for now, we are, relatively, deaf, dumb and blind.
Logic is the main task for human mind. For me it's the most significant a priori function of humans. So if we ever be able to find the ultimate truth yeah it would be cause of Logic. As every development is made through logic.
Every human obstacle we overcame so far and every problem we solved it, was cause some person used that a priori human ability so well enough as to see the logical solution!
I can't understand how Logic cannot be seen as one of the main keys of our evolution. Not to say the most important one.So I'm really surprised when I see people underestimate Logic so badly! It rings bells to me really!!
Quoting FalseIdentity
And is it a problem cause??? Of course in primal people the first and most significant problem that they had to solve was food! And their logic dealt exactly with that most important thing for them! I don't see any paradox to that at all. It's only logical in fact!
Quoting FalseIdentity
Not all problems have one solution only and some they don't have any at all. So realizing that, is Logic! And then no need to search for only one option. Cause you understand that's impossible.
You have a strange view of how Logic works.
Quoting FalseIdentity
Yeah sure. As if everything we humans dealt and invented so far had to do with the survival and only that!
The " good"that you mention is nothing more than a human invention!! There is no good or bad in universe.
So what exactly you expect from Logic to understand?!? What a Non universal existing human" invention" is?!? Well probably our own Logic understands that, and that's why these terms can never be fully defined! It's impossible.
Quoting FalseIdentity
Our senses are limited. And our Logic follows our senses.So what more you ask from it?? Even the fact we are able to realize that and understand that there might be more things that we can't perceive that's also logic's work!
You accuse our logic that it is too human-ish?? Well sorry but we are humans indeed!And our minds analyze specific data taken by our senses.
But cause of our mind's a priori ability to search for truth we can even create technology that can drive us see more of things that our senses can give us!!
In conclusion calling Logic as Evil is non logical at all on itself!
And that shows you have a wrong view of what logic is and how it should be performed.
It's also interesting to note the inquisitors oft repeated phrase: "Every question we answer opens up a multitude of new questions."
That means to me that, if history is any teacher, 1. there is and never will be any end in sight; 2. the more we continue in the direction we are going, the further we get from the truth; 3. there will not be a tipping point where we start closing in; 4. we best go back in the other direction, to the beginning, and attack the fundamental premise(s) that we agreed upon (and the questions we ignored) before we set out; 5. we best go back in the other direction, to the beginning, and make sure we took the right track on our way out.
When I try to do all that with my weak and non-scientific mind, I find that where All = A, then A = A and A = -A. That does, of course, violate logic, and it may very well mean that my mind is so open that my brains fell out; but I think "A" is pretty dispositive of all questions that anyone could have. The answer is always yes, and no, and things we can't fathom.
But it is fun to watch the logician and the physicist struggle; and I do wish them luck.
Let's focus on "Change my mind".
You'll believe whatever you want. From your writing style it is clear you will do so in such a way as to protect your expressed ideas. Regardless of what we say. So you will choose whatever arguments support your OP, and reject those that do not.
That's apparent in your reply to @dclements, which displays how you have closed yourself off from logic by claiming that it is evil. Hence your mind will not be changed by logical argument. You do the same with @SophistiCat's reply, demanding he address you in terms of a logic you have already rejected.
You try to make a virtue out of being adamant that you are right, while closing yourself off from rational discussion. You've taken a stance against learning anything new, against having your opinion changed. It's the attitude found in conspiracy theorists across the world. You've thrown your lot in with the irrational, and only play at rational conversation.
Change your mind? That's not our responsibility. That's up to you.
So here's a question for you: What would change your mind?
It's a reddit thing. It's just an invitation to put an argument together.
Of course. And it's muddle-headed.
Not if you understand how to play that language game.
Try to live your life NOT manipulating anything. Then come back and write a report on that. Whether we know or not what we are interacting with, has no bearing on anything, until repercussions occur. Like burning fossil fuel and heating up the globe. HOWEVER. Manipulating the environment is a transferable skill, we can stop or reverse the global warming by further manipulating the environment.
This argument you present is true, but useless. It has no bearing on anything.
This is true, and it's also true that we need not to see things we don't see.
Once the teacher is ready, the student appears.
The fight for survival, which renders logic to be a tool of survival, helps survival. No fight, no survival. So... those who give up the fight (logic included) perish.
Go ahead, make my day.
However, survey the world as it is now and exactly the opposite has occurred - we've adapted the world to our minds & bodies. The idea of terraforming (making other worlds suitable for life) is in actuality anthropoforming (making other worlds suitable for humans).
2. Free will. Given the above is true, we needn't worry about logic at all for most of the time logic forces us to a conclusion it's so that we adapt to our world (environment) but this, from how things are, is completely unnecessary. We're not at the mercy of facts, we change facts to suit our needs.
Ergo,
logic maynot be evil per se but we don't have to listen to it im the sense follow its rules to the T. We can fashion the world, as we already have, to satisfy our demands. Logic then goes out the window. We can be as illogical as we want so long as we've transformed the world to be not so inimical to illogic.
D.D.Hoffman, M.Singh and C.Prakash: The Interface Theory of Perception (2015)
Perhaps @Isaac could say something intelligent about it.
@Joshs may also be interested in this, seeing as the ideas put phenomenology front and center.
This might be true if we never reasoned hypothetically. If we held premises only absolutely, and awaited conclusions as fresh intelligence. As it is, conclusions are just premises playing a role. (Prey? Maybe.) The game of deduction teases out tensions between (all 3, in a syllogism) premises. Helps us redefine and improve them all: refine what we think they say, if they are to be kept provisionally on board.
Alvin Plantinga's 'evolutionary argument against naturalism' argues that combining naturalism and evolution is self-defeating, because, under these assumptions, the probability that humans have reliable cognitive faculties is low or inscrutable (i.e. can't be determined). He claims that evolutionary naturalism seems to lead to a deep and pervasive skepticism, on account of it reducing reason to an adaptation, which undermines the 'sovereignty of reason' by subordinating it to the demands of survival. And if the activities of reason are biologically determined, then how can we have confidence in its powers? This leads to the conclusion that reason, interpreted in biological terms, cannot be trusted to produce true beliefs, as there is no criteria outside biological theory other than what is effective for survival. So Donald Hoffman is in some ways conceding this point - but then the question is, if his argument is also dependent on the same epistemological framework, then how does he know that his theory is 'true'? Why is it not subject to the same explanatory mechanism that he says is responsible for how we think in other respects?
Whilst Plantinga is a theistic philosopher, Thomas Nagel considers a similar point in his Evolutionary Naturalism and the Fear of Religion from a more analytical perspective:
[quote=Thomas Nagel]What does it mean to say that my practical reasonings are efforts to get the objectively right answer about what I should do, rather than manifestations of biologically selected dispositions that have no more objective validity than a taste for sugar? The idea of a harmony between thought and reality is no help here, because realism about practical reasons and ethics is not a thesis about the natural order at all, but a purely normative claim. It seems that the response to evolutionary naturalism in this domain must be almost purely negative. All one can say is that justification for actions is to be sought in the content of practical reasoning, and that evolutionary explanation of our dispositions to accept such arguments may undermine our confidence in them but cannot provide a justification for accepting them. So if evolutionary naturalism is the whole story about what we take to be practical reasoning, then there really is no such thing.[/quote]
So - I hope that changes your mind - at least about the nature of the problem.
Quoting FalseIdentity
In other words you're saying: "If you use logic you're going to find every answer that will ever be relevant to you". So who cares if there is a "deeper understanding" when that deeper understanding cannot affect us (if it did, we would have evolved to detect it). There is certainly deeper understandings than what we have right now, but point is, the use of logic will give us all the answers that can affect us. The only thing it doesn't give us access to is things that are irrelevant to us. So, who cares?
Quoting FalseIdentity
Logic isn't a person so it cannot pretend.
Quoting FalseIdentity
I don't see why this is a complaint really. And besides, nothing you said supports this in the first place. Logic wasn't "evolved to allow us to hunt" as you can see, it does way more than just that. This is like complaining about the invention computers because they can be used to bash someone's head in.
Quoting FalseIdentity
For someone who doesn't understand what's good you sure are convinced that logic is evil!
Again, we didn't evolve the capacity to reason purely to hunt. The capacity of reason has other uses. Including defining "the good" (and evil, as you do here). If it is as you say, and we cannot understand good, then you cannot make the argument that logic is evil. You're cutting the branch you're sitting on.
Quoting FalseIdentity
Again, the capacity of reason is not limited to be used in hunting and gathering, even if we accept that it evolved for that purpose. Just like a chair was invented for sitting, but can also be used as a weapon.
Note also this argument can be used to say ANYTHING we evolved was evil:
Quoting FalseIdentity
Why would Nirvana be any different? We evolved the capacity to experience Nirvana correct? Since we evolved it, it means it isn't necessarily pointing at truth. And supposedly you think that if we evolved a capacity, it must purely be to hunt (for some reason) making it predatory, so that's your second complaint also applying to Nirvana. And the rest follow in exactly the same way.
That Nagel essay I mentioned is relevant, and also his book Mind and Cosmos, particularly chapter 4 'Cognition', notably because he's not necessarily arguing the case from a theistic motivation, or claims not to be. (I have Plantinga's book Where the Conflict Really Lies, but it's a pretty dry read, to be honest, never made much headway with it. There's a bunch of carefully written essays on a Christian apologetics site about the argument from reason here.)
I am very interested in the 'argument from reason', but I don't want to use it to persuade others that God exists. I think what interests me about it, is the claim that reason itself is not something that can be or ought to be explained in terms of any other factor. Whereas nowadays it is widely accepted that, because we evolved, then reason is, in some sense, just another natural faculty, like a particularly successful adaptation, something that is a consequence of an essentially unreasoning process, which is assumed by nearly all scientific philosophy.
[quote=Leon Wieseltier, The God Genome; https://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/19/books/review/the-god-genome.html]The reason [Dennett] imputes to the human creatures depicted in his book [Breaking the Spell] is merely a creaturely reason. Dennett's natural history does not deny reason, it animalizes reason. It portrays reason in service to natural selection, and as a product of natural selection. But if reason is a product of natural selection, then how much confidence can we have in a rational argument for natural selection? The power of reason is owed to the independence of reason, and to nothing else. (In this respect, rationalism is closer to mysticism than it is to materialism.) Evolutionary biology cannot invoke the power of reason even as it destroys it.[/quote]
[quote=The Powers of Pure Reason - Kant and the Idea of Cosmic Philosophy, Alfredo Ferrarin]...we may be sorrrounded by objects, but even while cognizing them, reason is the origin of something that is neither reducible to, nor derives from them, in any sense. In other words, reason generates a cognition, and a cognition regarding nature is above nature. In a cognition, reason transcends nature in one of two ways: by rising above our natural cognition and making, for example, universal and necessarily claims in theoretical and practical matters not determined b nature, or by assuming an impersonal objective perspective that remains irreducible to the individual 'I'.[/quote]
(I am contemplating enrolling in an M.A. stream next year at Uni Syd to study the argument from reason but haven't made up my mind yet.)
My understanding of logic is that it is an elaboration of the principle of identity or non-contradiction: every object is what it is and is not what it is not. This must have been true even before the humans appeared on the scene, otherwise reality would not be what it is and what is true would not be true, which would be nonsense. Humans learn this universal logic and apply it to their daily life and later also to religion, philosophy and science. It can be used for both good and evil.
So reality itself is logical, in the sense that it is what it is. And that's all that logic tells you: an object is what it is. But it doesn't tell you what the object is - that's a non-logical aspect of reality; however, this non-logical aspect of reality is inseparable from the logical aspect of reality.
I'm not sure I'm actually following the link the OP is trying to make between Hoffman and 'logic'. Hoffman's theory is all about the veridical break between perceptive features and the causes of them. What that's got to do with logic, I'm not sure.
As far as Hoffman's paper itself is concerned a good critique is here https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26452374/.
Basically Hoffman sets up so high a standard of correspondence that no modelling system could ever meet it without itself being the external world. I agree with his picture of pragmatism in model selection, but I don't agree that the models he uses (the 'winning' approaches in his game theoretical competition) are, in fact, non-vericidal. It's simply inherent in the modelling process that there will be a disconnect between the hidden cause and the perceptive feature. What Hoffman brings is the idea that this disconnect is not going to be random, it's going to be subject to selective pressure. I can see that, but the fundamental function of these models is surprise reduction and that is correspondence dependant (or at least there's no reason to assume it's not). We might gain some fitness advantage from one modelling assumption over another, but they're both still modelling something. Without a causal relationship between this something and the model, we're left with a kind of ghost in the machine - what causes the models and how, if not external causes and by physical interaction.
No problem. :D
It isn't that I dislike the video, it is just that I like the doctrine of Anekantavad better explaining the issue. I'm not sure whether it was just me being snobbish about it or if the video doesn't really explain it that well, but that doesn't really matter I think. What matters is that you have a grasp of what no one sidedness means and the value of such a concept; or at least I believe and hope you understand it.
The doctrine of no one sidedness more or less states that one is flawed when one believes something is either "good" or "evil" just as a blind man might think an elephant might be a snake or a tree. The words "good" and "evil" themselves are loaded with emotional context where one is stuck viewing the world through something like a microscope and not seeing the bigger picture of things. While this is 'ok' in our day to day lives, it makes it harder for us to understand the differences between personal morality and what might be objective morality. As long as you can see there is a difference between the two (and why logic itself may not be "evil" when one looks at morality through a viewpoint of objective morality instead of personal morality) then I believe you are one the right path.
At least we see a lot of people who count stuff to get through boring or stressfull situations. Imagine hence a second cat which believes that counting sheep makes mouse come out of holes so she eagerly counts sheeps while sitting there. This cat will consume less energy than the cat that holds the true believe that mouse tend to come out of holes by the descision of the mouse.The cat that holds the false believe about mice will hence be positively selected over the cat that holds true believes. Other more sad examples come to mind; for example it can give you a survival advantage to believe your neighbour is a witch (in Africa the people that killed the "witch" usually take her land and house). I furthermore need to make clear that my argument is only in a small part based on Hoffmann (this is what might have confused you). My main problem is that logic is developed for the purpose of predation and that it might work for that purpose but I don't think it works well on intelectual tasks that are not related to predatable objects. This claim is based on research on brain lateralisation in Lizards and hence fully independent of Hoffmann's logic.
I overlooked this part of your argument I think where you are talking about how our existence has the problem where we have to survive by killing/eating other things that are alive. I could be wrong but this problem is covered by the issue of how our world is imperfect in many ways, the issues where we may not really have free will, as well as other problems with the human condition.
On way of addressing the problem with this world is to understand the concept of Dukkha (another Jain doctrine similar to the doctrine of Anekantavad ) which states that our world is an imperfect one and our existence is filled with pain and suffering which makes us imperfect beings. Because of this it is more or less a given that any process of thought or tool we make will not be enough to fix whatever issue that causes our world to be imperfect. It is kind of odd to say this but in our minds we can create abstract worlds that do not exist using math, logic, or other mental tools and these non-existing model worlds are "perfect" in their model worlds since they are just mental construct but when building these things in the real world they will contain all the flaws of anything that exists.
If you want to know why things that don't exist have no flaws (other than perhaps the flaw we make when envisioning them) and why everything that we create does my best answer to that the mental models/abstract objects in our head don't have to account for the problems that exist in the real world and in the real world things are infinity more complicated than we think they are and and it is a given that some of these variables that we do not or can not account for undermine that is created by our hand or any other process that can create it.
In a nutshell, it is existence itself that is flawed not logic.
I just remembered an moral argument that might help you with you question.
Immanuel Kant believed that certain actions are wrong (such as lying) and he believed them wrong not just some of the time but all of the time. He even believed lying to a murder in order to save someone's life was wrong, which I believe is a argument that someone else posed to him.
Lying to a Murderer: Immanuel Kant (Lecture 12 & 13)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eM6MaJAE3Qk
I believe if you think about this moral dilemma and come up with a answer, you will also get an answer to your question as to whether logic is 'evil'.
The principles of identity/non-contradiction/excluded middle are not some optional gentlemen's agreement but necessary properties of reality, without which there would be no gentlemen in the first place. Or there would but there wouldn't, if that makes sense.
They are optional if you are not talking about reality. Regardless, the question I have is, are they proven with lesser proofs than simply saying "self-evident" or "can't prove a negative"?
Quoting litewave
There are and there aren't.
Quoting litewave
Bingo! Makes perfect sense to me. And not.
How?
I am currently reading Steven Pinkers' new book, Rationality. And his first step was to discuss the complementary roles of Rationality (Logic) and Irrationality (Intuition). Each is appropriate in some contexts and not in others. Ironically, the stumbling block for Intuition is Probability : conjecturing about future events and outcomes. Intuition reaches its assessment quickly, but is subject to gaps in knowledge & experience that result in erroneously biased projections. Calculating likelihood comes easily to intuition, but all too often goes astray due to Cognitive Illusions.
On the other hand, slow step-by-step reasoning is more likely to find the gaps & pitfalls, but it may not reach a conclusion in time to be useful. Fortunately, humans have developed beyond the quick intuition of their animal nature -- sufficient for the simple eat-or-be-eaten milieu of cavemen -- in order to see the invisible logical structure of reality -- necessary for the complexities of the modern urban jungle. Unfortunately, reasoning is hard mental work, and some of us are too lazy to put in the time & effort to make use of our logical faculties. Yet, others (e.g. mathematicians & analytical philosophers) are so motivated to parse the world into fine details that they can't "see the forest for the trees".
So, it seems that the "place beyond logic" (e.g. heart ; gut feelings) provides emotional rewards, by simplifying the world into knee-jerk reactions. Therefore, I would say that the Heart is protected against Logic by the shot of dopamine that gives us the satisfied feeling that we know what's-what, even when what we know is illogical. :smile:
Note -- we tend to switch between Intuition and Reason depending on the context. Intuition is better suited for concrete real-world situations, but Logic is more accurate for abstract hypotheticals.
". . . people do apply logic when the rule involves shoulds and shouldn'ts of human life rather than arbitrary symbols and tokens." quote from the book.
Ah, ok. In that case you are talking about nothing because a thing that is not identical to itself is nothing.
Right back atcha! Happy Halloween!
Not true. That's like the anecdote: Just because you can't fathom it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Now, we could, if we wanted to, enter into a gentlemen's agreement that a thing that is not identical to itself is nothing. I mean, since you can't prove it, we kinda sorta have to; if we are going to limit ourselves to reality.
Thanks, yes, As it happens, I was just listening to Steven Pinker discuss this view of reason via his new book Rationality. It does interest me that he and other Enlightenment tradition inheritors seem to use the word reality with minimal philosophical reflection. It seems that Pinker defines reason as coming into being as the most efficient method to help humans achieve their goals.
Ok, it is something - but only if it is nothing. That's where contradiction gets you.
The idea that something is self-evident sounds like "Because I said so." It sounds religious. Yeah, religious. Anyway, I try to avoid use of the word "thing", by itself or as a suffix. It's too limiting, because it fails to account for non-things. In the end, I find "A" (i.e. All) as necessarily accounting for the absence of itself. And really, if it didn't, what kind of All would that be? Kind of like "limited infinity" or "limited sovereignty." Which brings us back to God. What kind of god could not render itself, or be, that which we will never or cannot fathom? That would be a real pussy of a god! So, God, like logic, says "Because I said so." It's a gentlemen's agreement, coming and going. Is logic our god? We can't question it? We can't demand that it prove itself?
Is it self-evident to you that it sounds religious?
Quoting James Riley
But without the gentlemen's agreement, the gentlemen's agreement would still be there. What kind of agreement is it then?
No. That's my subjective perception.
Quoting litewave
Yes and no. I think that long before "logic" was formalized, Og and Ug agreed that a club is a club and a bonk on the head hurt. But once Ug was dead, I'm not so sure he agreed. Also, what Og and Ug thought was their subjective perception and not necessarily some truth that did not apply to them or which they could not fathom.
Quoting litewave
If, without the gentlemen's agreement, the gentlemen's agreement would still be there, then it would be a gentlemen's agreement. And not.
:rofl:
Is it self-evident to you that it is your subjective perception?
See, whenever you deny the existence of self-evidence, you invoke it. Or in other words, whenever you deny the existence of truth, you invoke it. Or in other words, whenever you deny the principle of identity/non-contradiction, you invoke it.
So, you can't deny it. It's not an option.
No. Perception is not self-evident. I'm not sure any "thing" or no "thing" is self-evident. If something were self-evident then you'd think it would be subject to lesser proofs. You know, non-anecdotal proofs.
Quoting litewave
Uh, no, I don't.
Quoting litewave
No; Unlike God, or logic, I don't pretend to truths, nor do I invoke them.
Quoting litewave
? No, I don't.
Quoting litewave
I just did deny it. Does that make you wrong? I mean, you just said I can't do something that I did. You just denied me an option. Hmmm.
Is it true that you don't pretend to truths?
Quoting Isaac
Isn't making good predictions (and thus minimizing surprise, i.e. failed predictions) the real test of correspondence?
Yes and no. I was just thinking that if you followed me around on this site you could easily find examples where I took positions, asserted truths, etc. But I've been assuming you've understood the "yes and no." The fact that we are all engaged in a gentlemen's agreement does not mean we are. The fact that we agree a club is a club and that a bonk on the head hurts does not mean it is or does. Mankind is notorious for choosing what is easy and what works and what appeals to his confirmation bias. But that doesn't speak to truth.
In other words, when I say A = A and A = -A, you can't can ignore the fact that I just said A = A and focus only on the fact that I just said A = -A. But actually, you can. You just did. And you have been. So, while you may not disagree with me that A = A; and you may only disagree with me that A = -A, I can acknowledge the possibility of both. You can't. (Well, you could, but you don't, unless you do. Do you?)
The answer is no, because you have claimed something as true (when you said that you don't pretend to truths).
No; the answer is yes and no, precisely because I lack your pretense.
What does the answer "yes and no" mean? You have asserted a truth (it is still there if you scroll a few posts up), so why not just answer "no"?
". . . I've been assuming you've understood the "yes and no." The fact that we are all engaged in a gentlemen's agreement does not mean we are. The fact that we agree a club is a club and that a bonk on the head hurts does not mean it is or does. Mankind is notorious for choosing what is easy and what works and what appeals to his confirmation bias. But that doesn't speak to truth.
In other words, when I say A = A and A = -A, you can't can ignore the fact that I just said A = A and focus only on the fact that I just said A = -A. But actually, you can. You just did. And you have been. So, while you may not disagree with me that A = A; and you may only disagree with me that A = -A, I can acknowledge the possibility of both. You can't. (Well, you could, but you don't, unless you do. Do you?)
Well, I still don't understand what you meant by "yes and no".
But for some reason you have answered just "no" here:
Quoting James Riley
I explained it to you twice. I can say yes and no (and actually believe it!) while you are bound to the two-valued orientation, dualistic thinking, the either/or, the black/white dichotomy that logic (your God?) binds you to, apparently with your consent. Not only that, but you pretend to know what you don't know. I can pretend, but have no pretense to truth. You pretend and have all the pretense in the world, without having first carried your burden of proof. Don't worry about it. You are in good company. The best minds in the world, that logic has to offer, agree with you. And I am but a fool. It's cool. You know, I don't.
And if it sounds religious, then the grounds for rejecting it are self-evident.
Quoting Tom Storm
Reviews I have read have been scathing. His views are not philosophically informed.
:rofl: I want to say "funny, but true." But I'm afraid someone will jump on me for saying something is true. :yikes:
You might as well write a negation of your whole post and it wouldn't make any difference to you, so why did you even bother?
I was kind of hoping someone would prove that A = A and that A does not = -A. You know, with something more than "Well, dummy, it's self-evident!" Or "Well, dummy, you can't prove a negative!" And etc. I was hoping it was you because you can apparently explain yourself without a bunch of equations/calculations that are over my head. I can't read math so well.
I neither know nor think I know; but I do pretend to know without pretense of knowing. And not.
What do you think it means, that A = A?
Yes!
The edifice of evolutionary biology is built using the grammar of rationality. To use it to suggest that evolution undermines that very rationality is to undermine one's own argument.
I think A = A is a gentlemen's agreement that a thing must be limited to what we say it is, and no more, no less, and no different.
P.S. Gentlemen would also agree that it does not rely upon us to agree, acknowledge, or perceive it to be it.
Interpreting A = A as limiting a thing to what we say it is would make the thing's identity subjective to us and vulnerable to our misidentification or mischaracterization of it. Objectively though, A = A limits the thing to what it is, regardless of what anyone may say it is. Is this objective definition of A = A not self-evident to you?
It can be (see below). Anyway, 2 points of order:
1. I had anticipated the subjectivity aspect with my second post, above. So, asked and answered;
2. You asked me what I thought A = A means. I mistakenly answered your question assuming X, not A. And I answered as I thought logic would answer, not me. So let me clarify. For me, A means All. Thus, A = A means to me that A not only = A, but it also = -A. In other words, All is not only All but it must necessarily account for (=) the absence of itself. Otherwise, it could not be All.
You can substitute "God" for All (A) if you are are a believer.
By A, I meant any object. So any object must be limited to what it is. But if A stands for all objects, what else is there in addition to all objects? Nothing. So not-A is nothing (no object) and it can't be identical to A because A is something (objects).
That was what I was thinking before I remembered that A, to me, means All. I should have re-stated for you what I said earlier in this thread about A. But X would have worked with my understanding of what logic provides.
Quoting litewave
As I stated earlier in this thread, I try to steer away from the word "things", singularly, or as a suffix. My reasoning is set forth in that post and I'll not repeat it here. However, the same analysis applies to the word "objects." All stands for All, whether object or non-object. Otherwise, it could not be All, now could it? It covers things and not things, or nothing, if you will. It covers presence and absence. It is and is not.
Quoting litewave
That would be true for X, for a logician, but All is not so constrained (and it is constrained; both, at the same time).
I'm not a God fan, in the traditional sense, but it can be illustrative. When talking to a "believer" I ask, if god is all powerful, can he not be not all powerful if he wants? It's the same for All. It's not All if it's missing the absence of itself. Compare: Everything can be everything without being nothing. Whereas nothing can be nothing without being anything. Therein lies the distinction between All and everything and nothing. So, logic, by so constraining itself to either/or, is akin to a God that is incapable of being anything other than a God. That's some weak tea and no real God. Like All would be if it did not account for the absence of itself: not really All.
I'm tired and cede the floor for the evening.
Yeah, as you may know, the degree of inference in perception is a topic of interest to me and Hoffman is kind of the bogeyman of it. He's the place we're trying to avoid ending up when talking about active inference.
Quoting SophistiCat
Well, yes and no. That's the difficulty which gives Hoffman the space in which he can introduce this theoretical 'veil' without abandoning all credibility. The problem is that the result of our prediction (the response of the hidden states) is just going to be another perception, the cause of which we have to infer. No if we use, as priors for this second inference, the model which produced the first inference (the one whose surprise reduction is being tested), then there's going to be a suppresive action against possible inferences which conflict with the first model. String enough of these together, says Hoffman, and you can accumulate sufficient small biases in favour of model 1, that the constraints set by the actual properties of the hidden causal states pale into insignificance behind the constraints set by model 1's assumptions.
The counter arguments are either that the constraints set by the hidden causal states are too narrow to allow for any significant diversity (Seth), or that there's never a sufficiently long chain of inference models without too much regression to means (which can only be mean values of hidden states). I subscribe to a combination of both.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21756446/#:~:text=Results%3A%20Winning%20is%20consistently%20shown,to%20continue%20their%20competitive%20efforts. When you loose arguments again and again this can make you depressed (in evolutionary psychology depression is involuntarily submission). Sophisticat for example tried everything to make me depressed even using personal insults such as that I am lazy and that he doesn't respect me. A depressed opponet is no strong competitor for food or sex. So all of this argument - IF evolution is true - is again not about any higher truth but about food and sex. That we are not able to notice that nature of our motivatiion during the argument is already a support for Hoffmanns theory. For evolution it's aboslutely ok if you win a fight through a trick, only the outcome counts. So if this fight leads to any deeper insight into the nature of logic it must do so by accident only.
I as well do not suscribe to the believe that you can beat your subconcious by making a hart thinking "effort". This assumes that you have controll over your subconcious while it is the other way round: the subconciousness is your master and under certain conditions it generously allows you to think consciously. No joke!
If you hence are undertaking a hard thinking effort "against your intuition" as you feel you are doing it's very likely your subconscious who is pushing you to do that hard effort. I can explain this to you with an example: When your amygdala detects a primary death treat it shortcircuits your consciousness completely and enacts an evasive movement without you understanding what you are doing and why you are doing it (the understanding of the situation will come later when your amygdala allows you to think again). This is a stark example that in theory you do not need to be conscious (read: have any logical knowledge) to execute survival tasks. It's as well an example that evolution values speed and survival higher than knowlegde. This mechanism is active all day long. Your subconciousness can switch of your consciousness at free will at any moment. The only thing that you might feel in that moment is fear, but fear alone is not logic. The question is now, when the subconcious has such as trong controll over you why your consciousness give you the opportunity to think at all in other times. It must derive some benefit from letting its "slave" aka you work but it must not necessarily be the benefit you assume conciously. If a lie to you about what your conscious "mental work" is good for for your unconscious is more energy efficient than explaining the truth - according to the theory of evolution your subconciously will always lie to you about the reason why it let's you be concious at all. Furthermore if it can switch of all intelectual faculties like in the primary survival reflex it is likely that it can switch of part of your conciousness during all your thought process when it finds them unhelpfull. You have as much power to prevent that thorugh "effort" than you have the power to stop other subconscious tasks like breathing.
In my opinion the true reason/motivation why your subconscious allows you to think in some situations and not in others could be key to understand if logic is of any value at all.
I see logic as a simple tool that can be used to accomplish certain things. Like a gun. But, like a gun, it can give a false sense of security, and it can become a fetish.
I see no harm in a disciple continuing his work. He need not go back to the beginning and recheck the fundamental principles that got him where he is.
But somebody should.
And he should remain humble and remember that he dangles upon a flimsy reed. Otherwise, something may arise and he might not see it because he can't see. Or, even worse, it will be what he sees simply because he saw it when and where he saw it, excluding what and where and when it could have been had he not seen it, or had he seen it with different eyes.
The person who goes back to check the work should go with the goal of refuting it. Otherwise, we have another disciple confirming bias. I went back to refute and, interestingly, I used principles of logic. I found the king has no cloths. He's still king, but he ain't all that. And he can be dethroned unless we believe him when he says he can't.
The truth is that you partially correct in saying that predatory logic that people use to today is used for "evil" at least when used in Western society and/our viewpoint. It can be said that this predatory view comes from a a notion that the individual can only be certain that THEY exist (René Descartes's I think therefore I am) and the world around them (including people) are merely objects to be used and discarded much like a hostess twinkie is consumed and the wrapper throw away after it is used. If you have a chance I suggest you read a book called "Heidegger For Beginners" as it should help explain some of the issue better than I might be able to.
Heidegger For Beginners
https://www.amazon.com/Heidegger-Beginners-Eric-Lemay/dp/1934389137
(Here are some articles relating to the US economy that show how this attitude and current political
conditions hurt the US and people that work here)
Mother Jones -It’s the Inequality, Stupid
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph/
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2006/05/look-numbers-how-rich-get-richer/
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-labor-union-decline/
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/04/michael-dell-outsourcing-jobs-timeline/
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2010/12/how-oligarchs-took-america/
So more or less you are correct in saying that today (and in a lot of Western history) people have used logic as a weapon to control and/or harm their fellow man as well as the world around them. But that is not to say that logic has to be used that way. Logic can almost as easily be used by us to help each other (and perhaps the world itself) as it is to use it against each other; it is just perhaps easier by those in power to use their knowledge, power, and other resources to gain leverage on those that don't have it than it is to improve the lives of every one that is less privileged then them.
I don't know know if I can explain why logic itself isn't "bad" or "evil" if you can't visualize it in the same way that one might visualize a coin where side is "good" or helpful and the other side seems harmful or "evil", but the coin only exist if both sides exist. This concept is more or less similar to the Chinese idea of the Yin and yang.
Yin and yang
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yin_and_yang
I guess what I'm trying to get at is that you don't have to give up your viewpoint why logic (or technology, human nature, Dukkha, or anything else) is "evil", but it might be useful to augment your existing viewpoint with other ways of looking at the world that suggest that things are not always what we believe them to be when we judge them with emotions (which is what often happens when we label something as being "good" or "evil") and try to understand the world in a way where things exist the way they independent whether they are helpful or harmful to either you or the human existence in general.
I have went through the effort of diagnosing you.
It is not logic that is evil in your mind. By the jist of your most recent post, it is the logic behind reality, that you imply is evil(co and co thinking about reality).
You have used and subserved with logic in all of your posts without a problem.
Hopefully this answers your question, sorry to hear that.
:up:
Perhaps evil is the wrong word, maybe young and restless. Similar to prey; so gather in packs, socialize, stay away from predators and enjoy the life cliche.
When made simple it seems worse than it is. Perhaps you have the upper hand over-complexifying things.
Like prey in the bush, waiting for the predator to pass by; no trolls under bridges, please.
I'm sorry to hear that. This may be a stupid question but if you have enough money to donate to charity then you might have enough money to pay for cryogenics. I don't know if you know about it but it might be an option if you are not against the idea of it.
Of course it's not that simple. But, the dopamine reward may allow Dunning-Kruger types to feel good about their hobbled rationality, even while they restrict the rational method to defending their prior beliefs. As David Hume asserted "reason is . . . a slave to the passions". And dopamine is essential to passion.
However, Pinker notes that Reasoning is not an end in itself, but merely the means to an end. And people have a variety of non-rational methods for achieving their goals, which are defined by their "passions". For example, a self-confident D-K person may choose to convince you of their belief by force. That's how the medieval church dealt with infidels, not with Reason, but with Fire. So, I still think that a confidence-inspiring dopamine boost could be one mechanism for making sure that certain intuitive beliefs are protected from the weeding-out chopping block of natural selection, by marking then as "good for you", if not "true for everybody".. :smile:
To me serotonin' is the reward neuro-chemical and dopamine is the worker-neurotransmitter who's reward is much like blood dope if to be considered reward.
Dopamine works to create refreshment, calibration, etc. To appease the side effect of calibration as a reward is criminal-ish, no(petty)?
Quoting FalseIdentity
Logic --actually the human beings using it-- basically does exactly that! Logic, combined with data (evidence) and experiment is how science comes up with new discoveries, how the truth of hypotheses is proven, how persons are found guilty or innocent in courts, and how knowledge is created in humans in general.
Quoting FalseIdentity
I started watching the video with a real interest to find out something new and valuable, but unfortunately I heard the guy talking about "interacting with reality"! What reality? Whose reality? He most probably means the "physical universe"! I stopped watching the video after that. If he doesn't know what reality is, which is the subject itself of that discussion, well, he doesn't seem quite wise ...
(BTW, yourself are talking about "interacting with the universe". Indeed, physical universe and reality are two totally different things.)
Quoting FalseIdentity
In what way can logic do that? Some example(s)?
In fact, I don't think that logic --even figuritavely speaking-- can pretend anything. Logic is general a system of thought, of reasoning in particular. It is people who pretend things, and in fact, usually at the expense of logic!
Quoting FalseIdentity
I tried to figure out what do you mean by "hunting". What I read is too theoretical and I cannot be sure I got it right. Can you give any example(s)?
Quoting FalseIdentity
1. Logic is not used by humans to understand truths. It is itself used to establish truths, with the help of data (evidence).
2. I'm not sure what do you mean by "the good", so I assume just "good", and I wonder how can good be irrelevant to survival? Doesn't good health, doing good to someone, etc. help survival?
---
I have used the term "logic" as a system of reasoning based on strict principles of validity. Based on this, and all the things I said above, I can't imagine "logic being evil"! Do you have something totally different in mind about what logic is?
That which is, was not always, before it came to be. Was it necessity that it came to be, or just easy, lazy or chosen? Was there another way? I'm not sure. I wasn't there. But by it's own tenets, it seems to me, the burden should be upon it, not me, to prove it is as good or better than any other. Indeed, if it's so great, it might show me any other. So far all I'm seeing is it. If it were to assume that burden, we can hope that it won't choose straw men, or weak proofs that it would easily defeat. I would hope it would find an alternative to defeat itself. If it fails in that, then it would be a despot.
A sharp knife needs a hard stone upon which to hone itself. So far all I see is a knife that is getting duller by the day. Tell me, necessity, what have you lifted and overcome to be what you are, capable of carrying us? Show me the heavy lifting you have done. Show me what you have done to bring us closer to, and not further from what it is that we seek: truth.
Quoting tim wood
I've lost my train of thought. Is the "good proof" necessity? And if so, is that the necessity of 200k years of community, or the "necessity" of the recent aberration of greed? I'm confusing "logic" with "necessary proofs", and "necessity" and "what is" and "they way things are." Different things in my mind.
I suppose I should have started with questions. But I'm trying to fix a broken hot tub (1st world problem), I'm doing what's easy, lazy, and chosen. :lol:
By "object" I just mean something, or not-nothing. And every something has an identity: it is what it is, it is identical to itself. There is not anything more in addition to all somethings. Still, in a sense there is nothingness inside each empty set and between any two sets that don't overlap (their overlap is an empty set too). Empty sets are not nothing; they are somethings whose identity is that they are sets (collections/combinations) with no members (parts). So in a sense, somethings "cover" or "contain" nothingness or absence but they are not nothingness or absence; identifying something with nothing would be mistaking a set with its content (in the case of empty sets, they have no content).
Not necessarily. There doesn't have to be anything contradictory about an object being in several places at the same time. For example, my desk is in several places at the same time: one leg here, another leg there... Where's the contradiction? An electron being in several places at the same time means that it is a spatially extended object (although not exactly in the same way as a desk), not a pinpoint object as we used to imagine (although it can change into a pinpoint object under certain circumstances, namely when it comes into contact with a macroscopic object, for example with a measurement instrument).
You throw around a lot of terms and ideas that suggest a systematic view of reality and a pecking order of ideas. How do you determine what is evil and what is good? How do you decide what is harm and what fosters flourishing? What is your foundation for using such ideas - apart from emotion?
Logic is surely useful for survival - it is useful to know that a tiger is not a sheep. It is also useful for helping your fellow man - for example by knowing that giving him food is not the same as bludgeoning him to death; a person who couldn't tell the difference would be pretty evil.
I know what you mean by "object". And, while you may include non-objects within the category of objects, I try to refrain from using object" or "thing" precisely to avoid that understanding. I don't want you thinking I might be arguing that nothing or absence is a category for reference to what is.
If they are not nothingness or absence then they fail to convey the nothingness or absence that I mean by A = -A. To say that nothing is something simply because it is an idea or concept that must be categorized for reference/contrast to that which exists, is like referencing a book that contains both concepts (something and nothing) but which is still a thing (book).
I'm talking about the book itself not being itself.
I know perfectly well the contradiction and illogical position that you perceive in my argument. But simply repeating the A = A and that A cannot = -A is repetitive and, quite honestly, beneath us. You know perfectly well that I am wrong, but you can't prove it by continuing to show me how A = A, or expressing curiosity about how I could possibly believe that it could also be -A. Rather, you must come up with more. More than anecdote (I could drop a ball a billion times and each time it will all does not mean it will on a billion + 1), or "self-evidence" (because logic says so) or because "I can't prove a negative" (how can I show you what I don't know?).
There is a gentlemen's agreement precisely so you can be relieved of a burden of proof that you can't meet, and we can then proceed on our merry way, inventing widgets and whatnot. All I'm saying is that, at the end of the day, someone might try looking outside the box of logic if they are looking to close in on truth instead of continually moving further from it. It's possible that this has already be done, but those who have done so aren't talking, for whatever reason. Maybe they are just being, and not being, at the same time.
Think of a singularity. If we were in one, right now, and not (heat death) or somewhere in between the two, that would explain a lot, at least to me.
But they cannot be nothingness or absence because nothingness or absence mean not-being. If you want to convey that nothingness is "covered" by somethings, the coherent way of doing it could be by pointing out that nothingness is "contained" in somethings as the "content" of empty sets, and not by identifying nothingness with somethings.
Quoting James Riley
The book is still itself and is not nothing, even when it contains references to nothing. Informally we use the word "nothing" not in the sense of exact nothingness but to express absence of objects that are important to us, for example you see an empty room and say there is "nothing" in it, although there is obviously space there (which is something that has mathematical properties) and teeming with air molecules and whatnot. And if the book happened to contain a reference to exact nothingness, I would interpret it as the "content" of an empty set.
You just made my point. But the better way would be to avoid, altogether, use of the word "things", singularly or as suffix. Likewise, "object." So I'll not get pulled down into that, regardless of how much logic would try. Logic has some work to do in it's own house, before handing out grades to the likes of me.
My concept of All covers every "thing" and every "non-thing" and more; so I just say All. And, unless I make the mistake I made earlier, where I should have used X, my concept of A, or All, is "big" enough to account for the absence of itself. Everyone else's "all" is merely a "thing" or a "non-thing".
It's the same reason I went for universal pantheism over universal panentheism. If there was a "one" over all the others, it would deprive all the others of what they were purported to be. I'll not do that. I'm big enough to allow them to be themselves, but they will have to share my stage whether they want to or not. Likewise, my All is bigger than your all; and that is, in part, because it is not. I can live with that. Logic, apparently, cannot.
Quoting litewave
There you go again, with the tautology. I just stipulated that it is "like referencing a book that contains both concepts (something and nothing) but which is still a thing (book)." That is logic. But, as I said, "I'm talking about the book itself not being itself."
Quoting litewave
I'm quite familiar with what "we" use. While "we" are entirely comfortable with the fact that "we" are right, "we" simply can't fathom the fact that "we" are wrong. I'm comfortable with both. Logic is not.
P.S. I understand "logic" is not a person, and it is not the thing it purports to explain. But I use it as the foil, and as shorthand, to avoid a personalization of the argument as I try to avoid offending the disciples of logic. So, logic can argue on it's own two feet when it pretends to engage me. Using logic, I asked logic some questions back in the 80s but so far, crickets.
Neurotransmitters all work together. But I was referring specifically to the "pleasure & reward" system, which lets you know that what you did was good for you. Or, rather, for your genes. Sometimes, what's good for your amoral genes is not so good for your moral "self". I suspect that most criminals feel good about themselves, until they face the legal consequences. :smile:
Dopamine and serotonin regulate similar bodily functions but produce different effects. Dopamine regulates mood and muscle movement and plays a vital role in the brain's pleasure and reward systems. Serotonin helps regulate mood, sleep, and digestion.
https://www.verywellhealth.com/serotonin-vs-dopamine-5194081
I doubt that the subconscious mind "allows" you to think rationally. Instead, the executive Conscious mind must occasionally overrule the default motivations of the Subconscious. If your worldview is somewhat Fatalistic, you may not believe that you have Freewill to choose a conscious logical method, instead of being driven by the animal-like, automatic, subconscious, instinctive reaction to every situation.
To clarify the long-debated question of FreeWill, I have developed a philosophical scenario of the human Mind, based on the model of a large business. It has many well-trained low-level subordinates, a few mid-level managers over departments, and one chief executive officer who rules them all. Typically, the business runs smoothly without direct orders from the top, as each subordinate level does its job almost automatically. But when the firm faces an unusual or difficult problem, the subordinate subconscious (instincts ; emotions) may report to the top, with a quick pre-set solution, or with a menu of options.
If the dire situation is too complex & critical, or portends bad consequences for the business (as a whole system), it's the job of the executive (conscious Reason) to leave the golf-course, and come into the office, to make the hard choices, as a singular official decision. Normally, the rational faculties lie dormant, until the quarreling instincts report that they are confused, and unable to reach a unified decision. That's why a past president once said, "the buck stops here", at the top. The human mind is not a discordant anarchy, or an oppressive dictatorship, but it does have a remote semi-retired chief executive officer : Reason.
Some of the subordinates may think the golf-playing CEO is a freeloader, who doesn't do any of the "real" work. But when a crisis portends, they all look to the Boss to set a direction for the company. David Hume may have spoken tongue-in-cheek, when he said, "reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions". By "passions", Hume was referring to the emotionally-mature Character (virtue) of a person (a logical value system of what's important), not to irrational, crazy, anything-goes, spontaneous, emotional outbursts. :cool:
I summarize my personal hypothesis of FreeWill Within Determinism as follows : Freewill is the ability of self-conscious beings to choose preferred options from among those that destiny (or subconscious) presents. In the complex (non-linear) network of cause & effect, a node with self-awareness is a causal agent. With multiple Pre-determined inputs, and many Potential outputs, the Self can choose from a wide range of Possibilities, creating local novelty within a globally-deterministic system.
http://bothandblog5.enformationism.info/page14.html
Hume's Passions :
https://psyche.co/ideas/neuroscience-has-much-to-learn-from-humes-philosophy-of-emotions
Moral Character :
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-character/
I can't tell you how relieved I am to hear you say that. That guy is full of shit. He seems determined to be the new Sheldrake.
Yes, I think active inference is walking the same knife edge that quantum physics has to walk. On one side is a much better understanding of how the brain works, on the other is "woooah...I mean what is, like... really real man". I get the fascination. I think active inference accounts of perception are eye-opening, they're certainly more than just mundane bits of cognitive psychology and I believe they can give us some insights into other areas of psychology, but we mustn't fall of the rails in doing so. Hoffman has.
He doesn't say anything definitely. :yawn:
When we develop models analytically, such as in science or in everyday reasoning, it is certainly possible - and seductive - to come up with a model that is resistant to falsification. But it seems to me that such a modelling system would be difficult to evolve in the first place, because the selective pressure would be weak to non-existent.
I didn't see an answer to this: What would change your mind?
Sophisticat had mentioned here that the ultimate test of the truth of our mental models is if we can do predict events correctly. At this point it makes sense to look more on how a brain actually learns to make predictions. Any neural network has to be "backtrained" what was a wrong prediction and what was a correct prediction in several rounds. When the prediction was false some neural connections will be cut in the hope that the error they produced will not reoccur. When the prediction was right the connections that this prediction made are reinforced so that the network get's better with every training round. Now I am afraid that the ultimate measure for the brain of what was a wrong prediction and what was a correct prediction is if it gained or lost energy through this prediction. But you can gain energy only by stealing (either directly or indirectly) life energy from other life forms. And since other life forms don't want their life energy to be stolen, the only way to train your brain is by constantly breaking the golden rule. The idea that we are morally allowed to take the life of so called " inferior" species is highly dubious and sounds like an excuse. I think there would be strong opposition if "intelectually superior" aliens came here and would harvest us justifying this with the same line of reasoning.
Now the neural network that is trained for this purpose and in this way it should have strong limitations in what kind of intelectual problems it can solve. For example in computer science you can't use a neural network that was trained for language recognition to recognize images.
In the case of the human brain that was in effect trained on how to break the golden rule most efficiently I am for example sure that it can not know what evil is in the metaphysical sense. I agree hence with the critique that - if I am really only that network - I can not know what evil is either. But if I am unable to recognize what evil is I could commit very evil deads all the time without noticing and that alone bothers me.A second unexpected but straightforward conclusion is that if it's impossible to understand for humans what evil is, they should stay away from building counter proof of god based on that term (I mean the problem of evil).
Idenpendent of if or not Hoffmann is right - it should be hard to impossible for this network to understand anything that is not either food or can be used as a tool to obtain food. If you see everything just as food or as a tool to food this will preclude you from understanding it's deeper nature. Understanding that deeper nature would just waste energy and maybe it even would over time degrade the strength of the network at least in relation to the task of gathering energy efficiently.
This network will as well have difficulty to recognize life forms that are to strong to be harvestable. If the universe is such a life form that can not be predated or if god is one, this explains why it would be impossible to discover them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_dominance_orientation https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1368430221992126
They are as well low in agreableness (means they are egoistic and hart hearted). I am sure they are prime material for a witch judge. Even if we do not agree on everything I wish you all the best and thanks for joining the discussion!
Why the asymmetry - predators being more intelligent than prey animals - you think? The most intelligent species, debatable, on this planet at least is an apex predator viz. h. sapiens BUT, this is where it gets interesting, we're the only ones that have a sense of right and wrong.
So, yeah, logic (intelligence), say, evolved with predation but look at what it's telling us - predation is bad. It's kinda like a reformed criminal, we should give the devil his due.
Quoting FalseIdentity
Yes but as I said, again it's logic (intelligence) that made the case for the golden rule. Going by how (some) women are turned off by men being mean, I'd say breaking the golden rule is not going to be advantageous to evolutionary success but...in the animal world, the rules maybe radically different (even herbivores engage in violence in the mating season).
Quoting FalseIdentity
Agreed! Our brains may have become specialized over time, literally putting some problems, the solutions to which beyond our ken.
Quoting FalseIdentity
Possible. Our brains, if adapted only for food & mates, may have been desensitized/become accustomed to true evil, so much so that it might even seem good and if not that, at least normal.
Yet, as I mentioned before, logic (intelligence), seem to have made some progress - ever wonder why religion seems so, well, obsessed with, as Sam Harris (atheist, neuroscientist, author) puts it, "...what we do naked..." and also with what we eat (halal, kosher, vegetarianism).
Quoting FalseIdentity
Yep! Too bad. Read what I wrote vide supra.
This is not to say that there is no difference at all in herbivores and predators. Prey animals have to pay attention to all of their surounding all the time (predators could come from any direction) while predators rather scan their surounding meter by meter and than hyperfocus once they spot something. In humans I guess that there are people who pay more attention to their surounding/are more prey like (this are the creative people, there is some relation to how distractable you are by your surounding and how creative you are) and there are people who are more classic predators like psychopaths. In psychopaths it's strange that if a strategy once was successfull but than is not anymore they will take longer time to realize that and drop the strategy than normal people. This is a form of hyperfocusing. In a chase hyperfocusing makes sense because many animals live in groups to confuse predators. If you have the skill to always focus your attention on the same prey/strategy than you will not be confused and you can tire your prey out. If you can not focused you will change prey again and again and the prey will tire you out isntead.
If you think more like a prey you can be for example a good artist and good at any task that requires holistic thinking and integrating large amount of information (seeing the larger picture). If you think extremely focused an logical ... well I hope srongly that not all people who can do that are psychopaths but it starts to scare me.
I might see as well why creative people tend to not get along well with the more "focused" part of humanity :)
Is it really logic alone that makes the case for the golden rule? I think that the golden rule is true, this is either a brain error of me or someone outside evolution is telling me that it is true :)
Lepers for spies! Lepers for spies!
(Essentially I've just stumbled on this... Sorry for a low quality post).
What's more proficient(?), the star killer or the time runner?
In the business model example, there are different levels of "access to information". The workers on the front lines (physical senses) typically receive new information first. They then pass it up the hierarchy, where it is sorted based on the need to know. So the CEO at the top is usually unaware of the bulk of information flow. He/she only receives the most important or urgent data, after it is filtered up through the system. However, an alert CEO may also have his/her own "spies" to actively look for relevant unfiltered information, before it is affected by the mundane priorities of lower levels.
Presumably, an alert rational mind also has feelers out for direct access to what's happening inside and outside the system. That doesn't come naturally though. It is learned through experience and special training for the job of chief executive. Philosophy is one method for training the mind to be prepared for unexpected events and sudden crises. You learn to be on the lookout for the warning signs of danger, before it becomes obvious to the lower level senses. Some people call this a "sixth sense", but it's simply what Reason does. The Boy Scout motto was "be prepared".
For a different metaphor : the sailors run the ship, even while the Captain is asleep. But once the ship hits an iceberg, the Captain is aroused, and begins to issue direct orders to all levels of the hierarchy. Even though the Captain didn't have first access to the knowledge that the ship was in danger, and even based on limited knowledge of what's happening, the Captain's general orders overrule the specific instincts of the sailors attempting to repair the breech. For example, don't try to fix the devastating damage, just seal-off the compartment, and retreat to a safer place. :smile:
Really??So the simple fact that this human a priori ability to search for truth can never be evil isn't good enough for you .How could ever an a priory human feature to be "evil"? Is our capacity of walking also evil then?
I guess it must sound too logical for your taste.
I had never heard of "predatory logic" before. But, after a brief review, I see it's not talking about capital "L" Logic at all. Instead, it refers to the innate evolutionary motives that allow animals at the top of the food chain to survive and thrive. PL is more of an inherited hierarchical motivation system than a mathematical logical pattern. Logic is merely a tool that can be used for good or bad purposes. To call the "logic" of an automobile "evil" is to miss the point that a car without a driver, is also lacking a moral value system. It could be used as a bulldozer to ram a crowd of pedestrians, or as an ambulance to carry the wounded to a hospital. The evil motives are in the moral agent controller, not the amoral vehicle.
It may be true that predators possess an innate "logical" pattern of predation. But it's also true that their prey have a "logical" pattern of evasion. Those patterns are simply what actions have worked in the past to allow the animal to survive long enough to reproduce. For example, african ungulates have typically relied on their speed & evasive maneuvers to outrun their predators with sharp teeth & claws. Yet, on the whole, there is a balance of power between prey & predator. Only in unusual circumstances does that balance tip one way or the other. If the prey escape every time, the predators starve. But, if the predators are too successful, again some of them starve. So generally, the predator/prey equation remains balanced, Hence, there is no moral inequity that one could justify labeling Nature or Logic as "Evil".
The term "Evil" is a generalization or personification of the outside world, as related to the self. And it would more accurately be labeled "imbalance" or "unfairness" or "injustice". Is it unfair for a lion to use its "predatory logic" & natural weapons to overwhelm a gazelle? Philosophically, we tend to think of Nature as amoral, and reserve immoral or "evil" labels for human behaviors, assuming that they should know better. Yet, only recently has the notion of Ecological Balance occurred to humans. And we are only gradually learning how to apply that knowledge, without tipping the balance against the survival of homo sapiens. To do so, would be Misanthropy, which is an injustice to the majority of innocent humans, who live modest & moral, sometimes oppressed, lives.
BTW, None of that Natural Logic is what Hoffman was talking about in the OP video. He was talking specifically about our innate blindness to the underlying logical mechanisms of nature, which we "see" only in the abstract. Yet again, that's normally enough information for our species to survive and thrive. Those short-sighted "wise apes", as a group, are indeed at the top of the world's food chain. And the natural balance has certainly become temporarily imbalanced, due to human Culture (reason) & Technology (tools). So, predatory humans do use their innate advantages, including the applied logic of Science & Engineering, to modify natural niches to suit human preferences. But, I wouldn't put the blame on the tool : Logic. As gun advocates accurately point out : "guns don't kill people -- people with guns kill people". Should we lobotomize people who are guilty of using Logic?
We civilized apes just happen to be in a position similar to the (formerly extinct) wolves, returned by humans to Yellowstone, to reset the imbalance of over-populated prey animals. Due to their innate talents & tools, including Predatory Logic, they quickly became too successful. So now, environmentalists are calling for culling. Not because their (wolf & human) logic is evil, but because "success" is a two-edged sword. Fortunately, humans, being moral agents, are capable of setting limits (government, laws) on their own group behavior. That doesn't convert Devils into Angels, it merely restores temporary balance to a dynamic world. :naughty: :halo:
Moral agency is an individual's ability to make moral judgments based on some notion of right and wrong and to be held accountable for these actions. A moral agent is "a being who is capable of acting with reference to right and wrong."
___Wikipedia
FOOD CHAIN JUSTICE
PS__A logical system without a good/bad value system is merely a dumb mechanism.
[quote=Ludwig Wittgenstein]A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes.[/quote]
I was just wondering how the body structure of predators seem more complex, very designed (retractable claws, pincers, stereoscopic vision, fangs, agility, power, clubs, etc.) compared to those of prey. If I were the creator, I'd have to put more work into the blueprint for a predator than a prey.
Basically, the point I'm trying to get across is that predators need to be more intelligent than prey. Planet earth is a case in point - the most intelligent organism viz. humans are predatory, in fact they're the apex predator. Makes me wonder about the wisdom of the Arecibo Message, SETI, Voyager Golden Record. Are we sending out an invite for a gala feast, us on the menu?
Yes, I agree. I think the development of beliefs is far more directly causal than that. I see hidden states of the system as causing the states internal to the system which, by interaction, seeks to minimise the surprise those external states can generate, not teleologically, but as a simple free energy reduction. There's a good paper by Friston (although very speculative, I should stress) on how this might come about.
https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1399513/1/Friston_Journal_of_the_Royal_Society_Interface.pdf
I'm not sure I understand the exclamation marks. Why? Even if it is, aren't people part of the universe and thus good and bad?
Is there any good or bad in universe except human societies? Aren't these simple things that people try to define as to make our societies and our living together function??
Can an a priory human skill like Logic ever be bad or evil? Especially logic which is our "searching for truth engine" , which helped us the most to evolve?
We could discuss maybe if we make sometimes bad use of some of such a priory human skills. But regarding to Logic, I don't see not even one harm that could bring or brought into humanity.
On the contrary, I see many harms caused by lack of it. Underestimating it and ignoring it.
Logic is our most precious virtue. Nothing evil with that.
"Human societies", like "a country", are abstract concepts and can as such not be good or bad. A country or society has no mind of its own. Nor has a society. Good and bad are not "defined", they are just human qualities (in this sense, a society trying to get rid of the bad is more inhumane than one in which it can exist).
Quoting dimosthenis9
To answer your first question, it can. And in science-based societies it's doing even evil, with no bad intentions though. Look at the state of the world. Look at the harm done to Nature.
The remark following is, excusez les mots, bull-nonsense. Searching for a truth engine (whatever that may mean...) helping us most to evolve? If you wanna evolve into a truth engine then it's maybe handy. I surely don't!
Human societies aren't abstract concepts. They are reality. Just saying that meanings like "good" and "bad" are only conceptions that human use as to live together in harmony.
Quoting GraveItty
Which exactly human a priori skill is by nature evil? We can discuss the use we make of such a priory skills and how we can create evil. But by nature these skills on their own can never be evil. Is our walking ability evil also then?
Quoting GraveItty
I can't follow you. Is that Logic's fault?
Quoting GraveItty
I don't want to evolve into anything. We humans have that mind ability already. Logic is our mind's searching for truth mechanism and I still can't see not even one thing that Logic brings harm.
And yeah of course Logic helped us the most to evolve. We use Logic as to find the best solution - truth in every situation - problem we faced as humanity. And that's how we got here.
I can't see how anyone can deny that. But apparently you do.
They are. But part of reality.
Quoting dimosthenis9
Of course, logic perse does no harm. But logic and "search for truth" relentlessly pursuited by scientists (who indeed are similar to truth or logic engines, though luckily there are exceptions) and applied to Nature brings our physical, and all the live in it, to the brink of extinction. Many species have already been swiped away from the Earth's surface, people suffer from science-based technology (as do many caged animals in experiments to find the so-called Truth; there are even scientists getting rewarded for systematically torturing animals!). And it doesn't look the situation gets better.
I think we talk about different things here. Science use Logic of course, but aren't the same. Science itself isn't evil at all either but of course the use we make of some scientific achievements can bring evil indeed.
Still no Logic's fault though. In fact it's the opposite. The use of science without Logic brings harm and evil.
Heh, "Life as we know it" - not too ambitious, are we? ;) I heard Sean Carroll talk to Friston on his podcast about his free energy minimization model for cognition, mainly, but they touched upon his foray into OOL as well.
I don't say there is a fault in logic. If people wanna think logically, why not? If they wanna arrange their lives accordingly, why not? But if this way of living becomes the standard for everyone and every creature on the planet, then I raise an eyebrow. You state that science itself is not evil. Of course knowing things does no harm. But science claims something else too. Something far more dangerous than just doing bad things. Most scientists claim to have the only possible right worldview, the one and only Truth so to speak. An idea started in ancient Greece (by Xenophanes and the likes). Now it's only natural to see your worldview as a true one, but science claims it's the only one. This attitude, together with science's bond with politics and economics, shows itself in the decline of non-western cultures (which can be very logical!) and the decline of Nature. Non-western beliefs, the soul, religion, etc. are being regarded as superstition. Once colorfull societies were simply wiped out of existence. Aboriginal children were taken away to "properly educate" them (and excuses always come after the deed). On top of that, knowledge about the physical world as produced by scientists can be used in a variety of ways. Especially in the realm of economics and politics, this leads to harm.
Indeed. I think Friston is a genius, and I don't use that word lightly, but in common with all geniuses, he doesn't know much about setting realistic targets!
Yes. Technologically advanced aliens would presumably also be somewhat smarter in general. But it's not their intelligence that we need to look-out for -- it's their motives. Historically, when advanced humans invade a new territory, the inhabitants usually become extinct, or learn to survive as slaves. It's not only selfish predatory Genes though, but also the self-aggrandizing Memes, that disrupt the former balance of power. The conquistadors and colonizers were not primarily motivated by scientific exploration, but by the mandate for new resources to exploit.
I wonder if a democratic society would be more peacefully scientific, and less aggressively predatory, than the old-fashioned autocratic civilizations. Kings & emperors were typically lauded for their predatory exploits as warriors, not for their concern for civil rights & infrastructure. Modern leaders of market-driven democracies, even including hybrid command economies like China, tend to be more in favor of cooperation than domination. Steven Pinker, in The Better Angels of Our Nature, presented evidence that more technologically advanced societies are also more democratic and peaceful. I hope he's correct.
Of course, we are still in a transition phase between the old insular tribal warring, and the we're-all-in-this-together global civilizations. I suspect that Carl Sagan, and his we-come-in-peace gold record, envisioned space-faring aliens as scientifically-motivated for cerebral knowledge, instead of predatorily-inclined to appease their visceral & power hunger. For example, more Star Trek than Star Wars. :smile:
I'd be more concerned with their diseases. Sorry for the digression, because I probably agree with your main point. It's just the unintended can be a real threat.
True. But how could we convince a superior power to spend a month in quarantine, while we check them out.? Hopefully they will quarantine themselves, as humans do, by encapsulating themselves in spacesuits until safety is confirmed. That would be better for both of us. Many, if not most, early sci-fi movies portrayed invasive aliens as naked & unafraid. :joke:
During the discussion somehow moral blured more and more into the background. It might be a central feature of logic that it is somehow nihilistic, so the longer one discuss "logically" the more moral blures. I have the feeling that the majority of people here (or at least a large number) don't believe it makes a difference if a thinking entity runs it's minds operation for example on donated energy like the computer or if that thinking entity runs it's entire operations by stealing life energy.
I am absolutely sure that it does make a moral difference. Our brain has no choice here, and hence it is claimed to be not evil. I agree that it is not evil in the sene of choice but that makes it just intrinsically evil.
However this is a personal opinion that I can not proof objectively. If I attack logic I can not use it to justify my own logic anymore. My opposition must be either due to a brain error, come from god or from my own subjective intuition.
God as a source always raises strong suspicions so I will not discuss this. "Intuition" or "instincts" here as well seen as an inferrior source to logic. I don't agree to that. I once was in a situation where my logic told me; it's all fine, this are completely normal people in here, no one said or did anything evil while my intuition told me: "run for your life". Than my logic told me: "No evidence. You only have this feeling because you gotten paranoid." So I stayed. I count not running for my life at that day into the worst three decisions I ever made.
What people don't understand is that the unconsciousness can handle more information in a given time slot than logic. Logic is really the thing that focus so hard it can't see the wood for all the trees. So facts about why this people where evil where propably all known to me on the subconscious level - I just could not connect the dots on the logic level.
I read your quritique about science Gravellty and I must say that I start to have the first slight sensation of the "run for your life" instinct again when it comes to modern western life style. You are right, science is becoming the new unquestionable god and I wait for a new inquisition to show up to defend it.
It short term success are undeniable. But what exactly does it give us in the long run? There is a Massai tribe, that is happier than the richest people on the Forbes list: https://www.forbes.com/2004/09/21/cx_mh_0921happiness.html?sh=c8ce61f13c1e
The disastifcation level of non-rich people with the modern "rational" life style is high enough already, that one of our two primary surivival instincts is failing now (the reproductive instinct). It has to be noted that especially in countries with high atheism the birth rate is fare below the death rate. South Koreas population is projected to reach zero in about 800 years. In our time standards this sounds slow but in evolutionary standards that is close to light speed. Happy as the Massai? Certainly not.
I furthermore see that many of my higher qualified friends seem to get more and more nervous. There is this genetic engineer who started his career by doing medical research but is now offering advice on bioweapons. There are my two coder friends who's favourite subject has become how to stop surveillance technology of the style China is currently developing.
My personal nightmare is the achievment of immortality by medical means or through transhumanism. It totaly escapes the proponents of this ideas that this opens up the possibility of beeing tortured forever. What the effect will be on our moral, our will to counter injustice and hence our political systems - I am sure that this will go wrong.
I don't say that this is a reason to abadon science alltogether but the feelings and intuitions of people about it should be taken more serious, it must be respected when they don't want to rush into this. It is true that especiallys some religious ideas delay technological progress. But by that they might be delaying the moment too, where we are trapped in the ultimate surveillance state, controlled by face recognizing drones and tortured forever, when the ruler does not like us.
Another reason why I stand to my own opinion, even if it is unpopular is this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjP22DpYYh8
However despite all this gloom there was one insight that made me really laugh during the discussion too: our understanding of the universe ends exactly where it is predicted to end! The brain just needs to know how to get energy to survive and not to know what energy exactly is. And the axioms of our modern physics end exactly there: with energy and matter. We know what they do, and this is how we describe them but we don't know what they are.
Which was? Sorry, I just woke up! Nice last comment. Gave me an early laugh! :smile:
Ah there is more! Sorry, just woke up! What's the big deal with science here? It seems everyone here is it's obedient slave and bows to it in awe!
You mean sitting behind the computer all day or taking the dog for a walk? What on Earth is a "thinking entity"? You mean people or animals?
Yeah, the probability cloud is pretty much suppressed in macroscopic (many-particle) objects. Still, the probability cloud is a logically consistent object.
Not everything that seems weird to you is logically contradictory. The law of non-contradiction states that "contradictory propositions cannot both be true in the same sense at the same time". (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_noncontradiction) I have underlined the "in the same sense at the same time" part because it is critical for understanding what a contradiction is. When I say that an object looks like a circle from one perspective and like a square from another perspective, this is not a contradiction because there are two different senses in which the object looks (two different perspectives). The object may be a cylinder. (It is not a "square circle".)
In quantum mechanics, a small object like an electron is a probability wave (cloud) extended in space when it has not interacted with a macroscopic object, and it is a "pinpoint" particle when it has interacted with a macroscopic object. Again, there is a difference in senses (and in times, but "times" may be subsumed under the meaning of "senses"), so no contradiction. Bohm interpretation of quantum mechanics says that an electron is both a particle and a wave at the same time, but even here there is not necessarily a contradiction because the electron can be seen as a collection of a particle and a wave, so the particle and the wave are not one object but two different objects, and their collection is a third object that we can call electron.
It was an invitation. Some centuries ago everyone thought that apples falling to the ground is just how nature worked and not a sign of anything special. Than someone had a hinge that this might require some deeper investigation. You just take the working and laws of your logics as a given, in the same way people take it for a given that apples fall to the ground: no further explanation required, it's just how nature is. This precludes you from learning anything deeper about the human mind. In case there is nothing deeper about the relation between mind and physics this saves you a lot of time, good for you. In case there is you completely block yourself from discovering it. I give up at this point because I see I can not arise the same sense of wonder in you that the unimaginability of the quantum world rises in me. To you it looks as trivial as cylinders, to me not. I want to understand why I can't imagine that.
P.S. I don't see it as usefull that either I convince you to change your position nor that you change my position. Pluralism is better for the progress of science than lemming--thinking. Follow ideas like the pilote wave theory, one does not know where it might carry you. I follow my feeling that I can learn more about logic when I see paradoxes as a real problem.
If you mean by "logic" "problem solving" then I don't see why it's evil or bad. Though people can use it in a bad way. I have had discussions with physicists who merely use their ability to solve problems to show of their ability to solve problems merely to show of and feeling superior to others. They are in general quite dumb people with no real interest in physics, talk like parrots, and behave like robots. They don't have too much imagination and have found their place in the system. Somehow I feel evil in these kind of physicists.
From child on we are trained in problem solving and there are all kinds of logical formal systems (math, proposition logic, or whatever abstract problem solving strategy) let loose to enter the minds of the sweet child in time. From being playful, colorful, spontaneous human beings they are turned into serious, grey, programmed creatures. Nothing wrong with being like that, but it's forced upon us. Children are obliged to go to school. Science embraces problem-solving and knowledge-gathering. Ad nauseam. In the process of logic, destruction takes place in the name of science. Logic can have destructive outcomes if relentlessly applied or forced upon us by politics. This eagerness to know and investigate is a nice human quality. Like problem solving. It has always been strange in my eyes that for examining the smallest the biggest experimental equipment ever was built (luckily the 6-billion SSC was called of, although Lederman and the likes of course hammered on its "importance" while in fact it's not needed at all to look deeper because you can imagine the subject matter too, without disturbing the world or measuring whatever). How many Nature was destroyed because of this? A considerable piece, including underground. A formal and abstract system of logic can be applied to every worldview or culture besides the scientific view (constricting the sciences in a strangling way though, like sir Popper and the likes try(tried)) and forcing it, together with science itself, upon these cultures has been performed very efficiently and with power given by science-based weapons. It's the never-ending tendency of science to solve problems and investigate which causes Natural destruction. On top of this is the application in economy. Also there inflation (like in the sciences!) rules suppreme. With all destructive consequences (besides the destruction involved in the knowledge-gathering an Sich). Logic can be nice. So can be science. It can do evil, destruct, and constrict, like the so-called scientific method, and even the most logic formal system (mathematics) do (though in science the last is used in almost every area of it). It can do harm to Nature and other cultures. The people using and applying it, that is. Logic and science are human enterprises, with a base in the old Greek philosophers like Xenophanes (from who the now common western belief stems that there can only be one objective reality, which he expressed as his only super monster-god, like the one in Christianity or Islam, from which many science developed too; as opposed to the many ones on the Olympos), Plato, or Aristotle. What a difference between them and their present day descendents though! Like the difference between a sweet-smelling colored flower in the rain forrest and a plastic dull one in a designer vase (the last brings to mind, I don't know why, that despite all individuality of present day, there is a kind of uniformity in mankind as humanity has never faced before).
So. Is logic evil? Is it destructive? The last yes. It destroys the outer physical world as well as the full inner potential. Now, the destruction of the natural world isn't evil necessarily. But what about all kinds of experiments done on living creatures to gather knowledge in the name of science (and usually the link to medicin is made to justify it) and problem-solving in relation to it? What about the logic of Popper, Kuhn, Radder, Lakatos, who all try to rationalize, methodize, formalize, or standarize, the sciences, try to put it in an abstract formal system? Now math does that too but it's a part of many sciences (though it can be quite constricting to them too). Don't they (wannabe scientists?) restrict the sciences and their progress? Don't they destroy the process of evolving science if scientists would conform to their measures? I think this is so.
Of course logic can't be bad or evil. Neither good or halo-wearing. It's very restrictive though. Strangling even. It kills human qualities present besides problem-solving or non-logical qualities involved in that "solving". It causes misery in nature (which we try to "solve" by logic and science that caused it in the first place!).
Can you give an example of the destructive power of logic? What do you mean, by the way, by "stolen life energy" and "donated energy"? Brain electric potentials and external voltage supplies?
A quantum wave doesn't look like a particle. In Bohm interpretation the wave and the particle are two different objects, but you're right that the Bohm interpretation is not popular because it requires faster-than-light signalling, which messes up the well-tested theory of relativity. The most popular interpretations of QM among physicists seem to be many-worlds and Copenhagen. According to Copenhagen, when the quantum wave interacts with a macroscopic (many-particle) object, the wave collapses into a particle, maybe somewhat like when a baloon bursts and only a small speck of it remains. According to many-worlds, when the quantum wave interacts with a macroscopic object, the wave splits into many non-interacting worlds, so that only a small part of it (a particle) remains in each world; in each world it looks as if the wave collapsed like the Copenhagen says. The collapse or splitting of the wave is caused by the barrage of particles from the macroscopic object the wave comes into contact with (a process called decoherence).
Quoting FalseIdentity
Yeah I take it as a given that A=A and I don't see why it would need explaining.
I sent a reply 3 days ago: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/609499
I'm sorry that I have not posted in the last few days as my other obligations have kept me from being able to visit the forum.
IMHO I do not believe there is a God (or at least the type of God talked about in Abrahamic religions) and therefore i belief it is likely we cease to exist when we are no longer alive. Part of the reason is that I doubt that a "good"/all knowing/all powerful would create the type of world we like in. I guess what I'm trying to say is that if there isn't a God to save us when we pass from this world then maybe it might be in your best interest to extend the life that you have if there isn't one after this one. Of course that is dependent on "IF" you would really want to still live in this world if there isn't any other one after this one.
If I had a choose and money wasn't a issue I would try to live on since I believe this existence is better than non-existence and I don't believe any religions that say that God will provide us with life after we leave this world. However this is just my opinion on the subject.
I recommend you take another glance at the Donald Hoffman TedTalk you linked to, or perhaps read the transcript. Hoffman isn't talking about logic -- where did you get that from? He's talking about perception. And despite his misleading rhetoric, he doesn't say we have no grasp on truth. In fact he leans the other way when prompted to clarify, at 20:24 in the video, in response to a remark from Chris Anderson.
It's not a startling discovery of 21st-century science that perceptual judgment is not in general immediately veridical. The fallibility of perceptual judgment is one of the oldest tropes in the history of philosophy. Progress in empirical knowledge depends on rigorous collection and analysis of observational judgments -- in the "direction of truth" that Hoffman acknowledges, when pressed, in the passage I've just quoted.
It's not clear to me what conception of "reality" he thinks he's overturning -- whose belief "that spacetime and objects are the nature of reality as it is". It sounds to me like he's recognized the conceptual shortcomings of some philosophically naive materialism -- perhaps one that he once took for granted himself -- and now he's wide-eyed at all the "possibilities". If that's so, then I'd consider his fuzzy exuberance in this public-facing talk, along with Nagel's Mind and Cosmos, as another symptom of the intellectual confusion attendant upon academic philosophy's recoiling from a century of immoderate scientism.
I'm sure there's some interesting scientific models hidden beneath his vaguely suggestive discourse. But on the surface that discourse is indistinguishable from the snake-oil pitch of a pseudoscientific charlatan. Unless you can point me to a more responsibly formulated presentation of his considered view, I wouldn't give it a second thought.
I apologize for reminding you that The Matrix movie, like Hoffman's thesis, was also based on a computer metaphor. But perhaps, it seemed more realistic, because the fake-reality program's sub-routines had human faces, instead of abstract icons. Anyway, you are welcome to whatever "analogy" has personal meaning for you. I happen to prefer smiley-face icons, instead of evil icons. :smile: :naughty:
A key error many people make is to think: science has solved questions in the past so it will solve all questions if it is given enough time. In science no one would make a prediction about the past based solely on an emprical trend. What you need in addition is a model to explain why this trend happend in the first place and why it should continue into the future. In this case you have to do a model of how the brain really works to explain the trend that some questions have been solved. I don't know how the brain really works but if it works like an artifical neural network in a computer it can not solve tasks it was not trained for.
I don't quite understand the phrase "by the success of science". Also, I didn't mention anything about "proving" anything or about what you are conveying here.. More specifically, I said that "Logic, combined with data (evidence) and experiment is how science comes up with new discoveries", and "It is itself used to establish truths", not discover truths. Truths cannot be discovered. As facts can't either.
Quoting FalseIdentity
I didn't say or mean anything like that or even closely. More specifically, The only thing I said about survivel is [i]"I wonder how
***
Thank you for getting into the trouble of replying to me. But, I am not sure if this reply should be actually addressed to me or to someone else, since I don't recognize the things you have brought up here as being said by myself.
To avoid misunderstandings, in general, please use the "Quote" feature, or copy-paste a text using quotes --as I did myself here-- to quote exactly what other people say.
Our times do indeed seem, at least in politics & fake news, to be devolving into cynicism, bitterness, & apocalyptic thinking. For example, many blockbuster movies in recent years seem to be built upon apocalyptic themes (e.g. Zombie Apocalypse).
But then, there's nothing new about that. History, as Hegel noted, tends to swing up & down, back & forth, toward positive (optimistic) or negative (pessimistic) extremes. At the low points of negativity (antithesis), people cry-out that "the end is near". But, eventually a new synthesis becomes dominant, and optimism reigns for a while. All I can say, based on historical dialectic is, "stay tuned, it can only get better". :smile:
PS__as an introvert, I am always in social retreat. But that's just my individual personality quirk. And I'm quite comfortable in my little hermit hole. But it doesn't mean that I am also, anti-social, pessimistic, or bitter. On this forum, I am often challenged to defend my Pollyannaish optimism. But I merely think of it as being realistic about the overall progressive trend of the world as a whole. :starstruck:
Apocalyptic Thinking :
The end is always nigh in the human mind
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21028156-300-the-end-is-always-nigh-in-the-human-mind/
The end is near :
An Assyrian clay tablet dating to around 2800 B.C. bears the inscription: “Our Earth is degenerate in these later days; there are signs that the world is speedily coming to an end; bribery and corruption are common; children no longer obey their parents; every man wants to write a book and the end of the world is evidently approaching.”
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/10/22/world-end/
I understand and thanks for your reply. So I will not take more of your time.
Thanks for your wishes! And I hope that your pain was not produced by my writing! :smile:
My dear human, what are you apologizing for? I'd be about the last person to blame an interlocutor for enthusiasm in philosophical conversation. I'm fairly enthusiastic in the act myself, whether I'm "for" or "against" a claim.
Do you mean to suggest I made no positive claims in my enthusiastic criticism of Hoffman? In that case you might take another glance at my remarks. It seems to me I made several positive claims, and even left myself wide open to cross-examination. Perhaps you missed those passionate affirmations. In that case, it seems you may have interpreted my first reply about as carelessly as you interpreted Hoffman's presentation.
Quoting FalseIdentity
Do you mean thereby to acknowledge that Hoffman was not talking about logic in the video you recommended? And do you mean to suggest that your interpretation of Hoffman's views on logic are derived from some other videos of Hoffman's, in which he does address the topic in something like the way you initially presented it?
Quoting FalseIdentity
In light of my preceding remarks, I hope you'll consider the prospect that enthusiasm isn't the issue here.
What do you mean by "not thinking"? It seems to me that if you open your mouth to make assertions or ask questions, there's thinking involved in the process. If you form intentions or expectations, or if you act on the basis of intentions and expectations, there's thinking. If you have even a vague understanding of what other people say and do, or of anything going on around you, there's thinking. As you suggest yourself -- logic and perception cannot be entirely divided from each other.
Perhaps you can take a vow of silence. But as any monk worth their salt would agree, it's quite difficult to make progress in quieting our natural powers of thought, imagination, and affect.
Quoting FalseIdentity
People are attacked for all sorts of reasons. Bad reasons for the most part, I presume.
I hope you don't think that I've been "attacking you" by challenging your statements, or that I've been "attacking" you or Hoffman by criticizing Hoffman's rhetoric. That's far from how I understand this activity we're engaged in here. I engage in philosophical conversation with something like the attitude characterized by Socrates in Plato's Gorgias:
Have you ever read this great work of Plato's? I consider it one of the most important philosophical texts I've ever encountered. I mean, it's actually useful, which is a rare thing in the canon. It cuts to the heart of the difference between philosophy and bullshit. And I've found it nearly as much fun to read as slaying orcs.
Quoting FalseIdentity
I'm likewise disinclined to search for more Hoffman videos.
Quoting FalseIdentityBlessings be upon you, FalseIdentity. May you find peace, love, and freedom in this life.
You seem a bright and passionate homo sapien with an interest in truth. It would be a shame if you allowed the shitstorm of our social media culture to derail you from your pursuit of wisdom by filling your heart with toxic emotion, or your head with all sorts of nonsense.
Several years ago, I wrote an essay -- based on my work-in-progress personal worldview, Enformationism -- which was intended to be an update to the current state of Evolution theory, combined with Information & Quantum theory. It was also presented as an alternative to the Intelligent Design theories based on the Genesis myth. It combines the basics of Darwinian theory with later developments, including Evolutionary Programming, which combines computer Logic with a randomized heuristic (trial & error) method of gradually evolving an optimum solution to a specified problem.
Of course, it's not a divine revelation, just a novel way to think about how we got from Big Bang (the creation event) to the emergence of Life & Mind from Matter & Energy plus Information. I haven't revised the essay with the later developments of my philosophical worldview. But it was a crude attempt to offset the afterlife-optimism (deferred gratification) of the Judeo-Christian myth, and the make-the-best-of-a-bad-situation pragmatism of the Existentialism solution to the problem of Evil.
It doesn't make any promises for personal salvation. But it does offer reasons for viewing Evolution as an upward trend in the arc of an expanding universe. "I suppose we can do what all human societies have done before us: use the myth as a map to guide us through the wilderness of this wacky world." Maybe it will help you to offset the cynicism & pessimism of current popular culture. :smile:
Intelligent Evolution , A 21st Century Creation Myth :
[i]"Religions have historically
fossilized around an antique world-view,
which is taken to be more true than any new-
fangled notions of science. But a map is not
the territory. And maps quickly become out-
dated. So consider this story of Intelligent
Evolution to be merely an update to older
scriptural and scientific paradigms."[/i]
http://gnomon.enformationism.info/Essays/Intelligent%20Evolution%20Essay_Prego_120106.pdf
Optimum :
[i]1.most conducive to a favorable outcome; best.
2.the most favorable conditions or level for growth, reproduction, or success.[/i]
The ethico-logical dilemma: Be logical OR be good.
My witnesses are:
1. The random good person who everyone thinks is both mad and stupid.
2. Everyone who thinks the random good person is both mad and stupid.
I agree with the general drift of your argument. Evil is often about rigid control whereas the good allows the world to be free: instead of possessing life, good shares in its freedom. 'Logic' and science are easy means of control and possession and are therefore prone to serving evil. Evil is control, good is letting go. When evil tries to rigidly possess life it kills it and turns it into not life.