GENIUS FORUMS

ADHD is a terrible disease.

[laughs]

That’s it? All your anxiety for that?

Wow. I think you were right. What an intellectual anti-climax.

Only an academic would believe that you can simplify something by throwing a new type of notation into the mix. Now you not only still have the problem to deal with, but another language as well and the complexity of translating between the two.

Matt,

Only an academic would believe that you can simplify something by throwing a new type of notation into the mix.

It may take 1000 words to express in English what can be said in math in five words. If you find it easier to read the 1000 words, good for you, but I personally think that reading five words saves me time.

Now you not only still have the problem to deal with, but another language as well and the complexity of translating between the two.

I see no need to translate between the two, just the need to switch languages when it makes sense to switch.

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Shah,

Matt: Only an academic would believe that you can simplify something by throwing a new type of notation into the mix.

Shah: It may take 1000 words to express in English what can be said in math in five words. If you find it easier to read the 1000 words, good for you, but I personally think that reading five words saves me time.

It makes sense to create a notation if you have a good reason for doing so and you think it through.

Matt: Now you not only still have the problem to deal with, but another language as well and the complexity of translating between the two.

Shah: I see no need to translate between the two, just the need to switch languages when it makes sense to switch.

You definitely have to translate when you're using propositional logic because the purpose of it is to strip all of the meaning out of natural language and to focus on sentence structure. It's totally useless for thinking.

If you say so, Matt.

David,

Causality, via the mechanism of evolution by natural selection, has dictated that living creatures act out of self-interest (remembering that "self-interest" can have many different forms).

Isn’t reasoning one of those forms that work as “self-interest” for a particularly differentiated identifiable ‘self’? Does ‘causality’ reason, or does a causally created temporal non-inherent form reason?

And can’t reasoning of a particular self cause a particular self to deny something or say NO? If I attribute the cause of reasoning AND the conclusions thence reached absolutely to an “unbroken” mechanistic ‘causality’ without placing “me” (Self) into the equation, then it is not “I” but ‘causality’ that is absolutely responsible for absolutely anything at all. Then why do people claim or indulge in illusoriness such as ‘copy-rights’? Saying “For convenience”, or that "that does not mean...", is not a logical answer then, for that too would be causality speaking, not the Self. So actually, it would then stand to reason that ‘causality’ THINKS. Which I don’t think you have a reason to believe.

The problem I see is that we think of Infinity as a causal process going back in time, which is what any-THING has to be necessarily bound to for consciousness to arise, but “consciousness” could arise with just any two things (in and of duality) being around, otherwise absolutely nothing exists, and not necessarily only according to what we define as “consciousness”. Hence, time does not apply to infinity, duality, or consciousness, for there could have been no Time when it was not so, hence no rate of change applies to them itself.

However, the level of consciousness depends on the sensing capabilities of a causally created thing, but there is not a single thing that is not “conscious” at its own level accordingly, otherwise, no reaction would be possible without ‘consciously’ sensing that which is caused and reacting accordingly, but as the level of consciousness increases, a higher level of ‘willing’ comes onto play, and the actualizing of it, which below a certain level remains at a minimal, but is not that it does not absolutely exist.

I really don’t know how else to say it, but this does not go against the law of causality in any way.

P.S. I can understand what you mean by ‘living creatures’, but how do you define ‘living’? Is a proton a ‘non-living’ thing?

Shahrazad,

DQ: Learning how to logically deal with philosophic concepts and clarifying them perfectly in your own mind goes to the core of developing a good understanding of reality. Mathematical symbology isn't going to help you with this.

S: If you were trying to explain philosophy to a French person who knew very little English, and you happened to know French, do you think it would be ridiculous to explain it in French, because English is just so much better to express these concepts?

In that situation, I would speak to him in French. It is unlikely that French is less philosophically effective than English. I'm sure it is more than adequate for the task.

French people are in the same boat as the English, except that they would have to use the French language to logically deal with philosophic concepts and clarify them in their own minds. They wouldn't need to learn English, unless they wanted to read English-speaking writers.

DQ: If anything, it will only hinder the process because, by its very nature, it falsely turns philosophy from an introspective activity undertaken by individual genius to a public one that makes appeals to the lowest-common denominator.

S: This is your hatred of math coming through. Math is just a language used to describe the world, and it makes sense to a lot of people.

I don't have any reason to hate math. I was always pretty good at it at school and university. I think it is a very useful tool, and capable of much beauty. But I also recognize its limitations.

Math describes certain aspects of the world and describes them very well, but it doesn't have the capacity to describe the whole world, nor can it penetrate into its deeper spiritual reality. This is just how things are. There is no point getting upset by it.

Logically recognizing the limitations of a thing can hardly be called hatred. Hammers are also limited when it comes to understanding reality, but that doesn't mean I hate them.

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David,

Can you explain what is wrong with using math in the context that EI used it?

This is just how things are. There is no point getting upset by it.

I'm not upset.
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David writes:

Just as Pye has to adopt an over-educated, high-brow pose and filter everything into old-fashioned, literary discourse before she can deal with anything philosophical, you have to filter everything through textbook language. It indicates that the pair of you do not handle simple, direct reasonings about deeper aspects of reality very well. It's a defensive mechanism, a way to remove yourself from the coal-fire of thought. I guess that is why she sees you as a kindred spirit. After all, the two of you seem to have nothing else in common.

At root, Pye considers you an "excellent thinker" not because of your ability to reason simply and directly, but because you have well-honed skills in disrupting the rational process, just as she does.

What of the deepest, and simplest aspect of reality I've been pointing to and which you reiterate here, that:

Causality, via the mechanism of evolution by natural selection, has dictated that living creatures act out of self-interest (remembering that "self-interest" can have many different forms).

Now that you have arrived here to the for-itself - caused to be so, as is every living thing - how do you intend to side-step it and speak from some other point of view? Of course, you cannot. You've been caused to be this self-interested being. And not only can self-interest have many forms - it is the form of every human action. We are not eating, breathing for each other; nor are we thinking for each other, too. This self-interest has nothing to do with morality or ethics. It's the fact, jack, through and through; do me anything "simpler." This might cause me to say in return of avoiding this, avoiding this self, that

It's a defensive mechanism, a way to remove yourself from the coal-fire of thought.

Or do you fancy a thought that makes of causality a metaphysical form, wherein humans simply exist as a conduit through which causality, as causality, passes through? That's another way to jump one's for-itself existence; another way to remove yourself from the coal fire of existence.

btw, David, if my opinions do not weigh-in with you as you describe in a wholesale manner above, you ought not give them so much whiney attention.



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Sher,

I don't have a problem with using math to explain a logical concept as long as it is done well, but the problem that arises is just like if one were to translate something from English to French - some of the nuances get dropped out. A pun would not work. Or there is a phrase in German that if translated directly, reads in English "I would like to pluck a chicken with you." It would take someone familiar with that phrase to know that it meant to talk things out and resolve some differences or misunderstandings. Math is not the primary language of humans. Some humans are very good at math, but many make mistakes without even knowing it, and more can't really associate math and other languages well enough to accommodate the nuances.

I explained how the translation of EI's math into English got messed up. His response:

ExpectantlyIronic wrote:I wasn't trying to invalidate logic. I was providing logic for why we shouldn't accept a proposition in the form of "D because D". Although, you seem to be suggesting here that a proposition points to something. I would disagree with that. Meaning is use and nothing more.

He was not trying to invalidate logic (I didn't think he was trying to, it was just an error - one that is natural when translating from math to English).

The next problem his response highlights is that for most people when thinking mathematically, practical application seems to melt away. Although math is very practical, most people hate "word problems" because it involves using two different parts of the brain. English, French, German, etc. are all in one section, but math is in another one. It has even been shown that males are usually better at math and females are usually better at language. (BTW - the irony Leyla was pointing at involved this fact, since you were a female arguing for math, and David was a male arguing for language). Anyway, this gap in communication within the brain is highlighted where EI says "Although, you seem to be suggesting here that a proposition points to something. I would disagree with that." He is not translating the whole equation.

In his phrase "meaning is use and nothing more" - although some words mean different things when used in different contexts, that does not hold univerally true. If one takes a rock and hammers a nail into a board with it, that does not make the rock a hammer. It is still a rock, but it was used like a hammer.
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David,

At root, Pye considers you an "excellent thinker" not because of your ability to reason simply and directly, but because you have well-honed skills in disrupting the rational process, just as she does.

You seem to consider any argument against your views to be "disrupting the rational process".

There are no axioms here. They have been artificially created by your contrived filtering process.

You have no axioms because all you have is extreme skepticism towards all philosophical matters. You dismiss any notion that one cannot be "certain" about, while propping up a metaphysical view that is only certain by virtue of being empty of content. You need the terminology you use, and your own particular methods of expressing yourself, because they are the window dressing for an empty metaphysic. I realize that any attempt to express your affirmative positions in logical terms misrepresents them, but only because such views don't have enough meat to qualify as an argument upon close examination.

Determinism, as a philosophic principle, is capable of predicting a number of things. For example, it predicts that at no time in the future will an event occur without cause. It also predicts that reality will continue on forever, that all future events will be without beginning and end, that it is impossible for any future event to possess inherent existence, and so on.

The ancient Greeks discovered all that nonsense a long time ago. If you want to think that it's more then a meaningless artifact of language, you just go right on ahead with your Pythagorean outlook.

Elizabeth,

but we do not see all that Is because our senses are limited.

Nevertheless, we can only know that which we can see. We can't talk about the world beyond it's appearance because we don't have any access to such a thing. I simply don't think its useful to call our sense-data an illusion. Other then whatever thoughts we piece together from bits and chunks of this "illusion", there is nothing else. Nothing that we can experience, discuss, or think about anyways.

You do know that you don't see every atom, don't you? You couldn't see every atom or you would not see your computer screen because there were too many atoms of air in the way.

We don't "see" anything in the sense that you seem to imply. The patterns in our brain that we refer to as our vision are merely the results of light particles stimulating our retinal nerves. That doesn't qualify something as an "illusion" in my book.

The next problem his response highlights is that for most people when thinking mathematically, practical application seems to melt away.

I was merely using a bit of rather sloppy logical notation to demonstrate why a single argument was invalid. Nobody seems to disagree with my point that such an argument is invalid, so I don't know what the issue here is. Why attack the method used to make a point, rather then the point itself?

Anyway, this gap in communication within the brain is highlighted where EI says "Although, you seem to be suggesting here that a proposition points to something. I would disagree with that." He is not translating the whole equation.

I'll admit that my remark there was incredibly off topic and out of place. It has nothing to do with logical notation, and it doesn't come from some sort of "equation". All I meant to convey was that terms don't always "point" to things in the way that many folks think of them doing. Words are used to do something, and language has evolved to facilitate and expand its pragmatic applications. We can imagine a primitive language where one yells "slab" in order to get someone else to bring them a slab. Such a language isn't designed to describe things, or facilitate philosophical discussion, and our own language can be shown to be a very complex version of such a primitive language. Doing philosophy is very much like trying to hammer a nail with a wrench. Unfortunately, all we have is the wrench.

Leyla,

Absolutely. I think the logical veracity of P1, P2, C is the precondition for postmodernist "thinking."

It was even discovered by that notorious postmodernist Aristotle. I don't know what your problem with such things are. Arguments take on a particular form, and any deductive argument will have a conclusion derived from a couple of axioms: hence syllogisms. Logicians don't force their terrible syllogisms and notations upon the unsuspecting masses, but rather dissect the arguments of said masses in a way that their logical structures are readily apparent. Any logical argument that is made can be captured by logical notation (though not necessarily by syllogisms).

[ah, nevermind]

Pye,

in addition, there is another excellent thinker on this forum - Expectantly Ironic.

Hey, thanks. Sorry that I didn't notice that post until now. Your a fine thinker yourself. :)

Steven,

[I suppose I'll retract my response to your retracted post] :)

[Freewill, the greatest ego defense. Even if an acasual event were to arise, casuality would still influence our every action. Coherence, A=A to A=A, dictates it. It is a lack of proper psychological understanding that prompts one to consider themselves the dreamer and doer of the mind and body. The deeper an understanding of one's own psychological process, the higher one's comprehension of the true nature of casuality. By limiting causality, by cornering it off into the empirical, one neglects a psychological reality, that gives rise to a consciousness of the true nature of determinism.]

Exp,

You think that determinism is a meaningless artifact of language? I'm sure you believe in some degree of causality by the fact that you can function at all. You type because you recognize that typing, under other circumstances you also contribute to, causes words to appear.

ExpectantlyIronic wrote: we can only know that which we can see.

I acknowledge a difference between scientific fact and philosophical induction and deduction.

ExpectantlyIronic wrote:We can't talk about the world beyond it's appearance, because we don't have any access to it. I don't think we can know everything, I merely don't think its useful to call our sense-data an illusion. Other then whatever thoughts we piece together from bits and chunks of this "illusion", there is nothing else. Nothing that we can experience, discuss, or think about anyways.

Very well. We both recognize that there is more to Reality than that which we see.

ExpectantlyIronic wrote:The patterns in our brain that we refer to as our vision are merely the results of light particles stimulating our retinal nerves. That doesn't qualify something as an "illusion" in my book.

In a mundane sense, I wouldn't either - it is only in a philosophical sense that I recognize there is more.

ExpectantlyIronic wrote:I was merely using a bit of rather sloppy logical notation to demonstrate why a single argument was invalid.

And the sloppy notation was read as sloppy logic.

ExpectantlyIronic wrote: Nobody seems to disagree with my point that such an argument is invalid,

I did, based on that your premise was invalid.
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Elizabeth,

You think that determinism is a meaningless artifact of language? I'm sure you believe in some degree of causality by the fact that you can function at all. You type because you recognize that typing, under other circumstances you also contribute to, causes words to appear.

I think the "causality" that David defends is meaningless. It's true by definition, and thus only true by virtue of his usage of language. I believe in an inductive sort of "causality", whereas if something has always happened a particular way before, it probably will keep on doing so.

I acknowledge a difference between scientific fact and philosophical induction and deduction.

Scientists use induction and deduction just like everyone else. The line between science and philosophy is a blurry one, and I don't think its fair to justify Platonic claims on the grounds that they are all that philosophy should be concerned with. They aren't, unless one redefines "philosophy" so that it no longer has its common usage.

And the sloppy notation was read as sloppy logic.

My logic was spot on. An argument in the form of "P because P" is invalid. It can be reduced to just P, which isn't an argument at all. To justify determinism on the grounds that you can't understand how a non-deterministic system could work in a deterministic way is circular. It is saying "P because P". Such a circular argument is invalid for exactly the same reasons I said before. I could say that determinism is false because I can't imagine how it might work in an indeterministic way. This would be akin to saying "~P because ~P".

Mind you, I'm not saying that this is an argument against determinism, but rather against the circular reasoning that was being used to defend it. A proposition isn't true by virtue of cohering to the form "P because P". That was my premise. I'm unaware of you making any argument against that premise, so I suppose you'll have to simply explain it again.

ExI:

L: Absolutely. I think the logical veracity of P1, P2, C is the precondition for postmodernist "thinking."

ExI: It was even discovered by that notorious postmodernist Aristotle.

You blaspheme! (I'm sure there's some form of a fallacious argument there...)

I don't know what your problem with such things are.

Yes you do:

Any logical argument that is made can be captured by logical notation (though not necessarily by syllogisms).

Elizabeth wrote to ExI:

And the sloppy notation was read as sloppy logic.

Spot on.

To justify determinism on the grounds that you can't understand how a non-deterministic system could work in a deterministic way is circular.

Hang on, exact quote please--I think I missed that. Who did that and where?

ExpectantlyIronic wrote:An argument in the form of "P because P" is invalid. It can be reduced to just P, which isn't an argument at all. To justify determinism on the grounds that you can't understand how a non-deterministic system could work in a deterministic way is circular. It is saying "P because P". Such a circular argument is invalid for exactly the same reasons I said before. I could say that determinism is false because I can't imagine how it might work in an indeterministic way. This would be akin to saying "~P because ~P".

Well then, here's an example of where mathematically saying something didn't get the point across. You could have just said "circular logic" to begin with. I'll get back to you.
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Leyla,

You blaspheme! (I'm sure there's some form of a fallacious argument there...)

Calling Aristotle a postmodernist is in a class all by itself when it comes to fallacious reasoning. :)

Hang on, exact quote please--I think I missed that. Who did that and where?

Trevor asked me how a random event could occur, and I said "it just does", which Elizabeth mocked. I then suggested that I meant only that a random event is uncaused (in the sense that I was using the term), and that I don't need to demonstrate a cause for it in order to posit it if I have evidence for it. My grounds for this were that any conceivable counter-argument to my reasoning behind this would be circular.

Elizabeth,

Well then, here's an example of where mathematically saying something didn't get the point across.

Pointing out logical fallacies isn't as fun as typing "P because P". Although, if they get the point across, I should tell you that a "P because P" argument also qualifies as "begging the question". To defend "P because P" type logic, you need to assert that it is pointing at an obvious truth (but not a "common sense" truth!), and that I'm just a "postmodernist" fool who's using my fuzzy thinking to mar an otherwise totally rational viewpoint. It also helps if you say that my views are just a "belief" held by "academics".

Exp,

The phenomenon of cause and effect can be proven.
The cause of a particular effect can not always be proven.
The phenomenon of cause and effect has never been disproven.

The phenomenon of something acausal can not be proven.

If you have one thing that can be proven, although not always scientifically provable, and has never been disproven - it looks a lot more solid than something that can not be proven at all.
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