This was originally intended as a brief reply to the comment by William J Murray but it sort of grew into something a little longer so I thought, since everyone else is doing it, I’d put it up here.
William J Murray:
I think that any fair reading of UD will show that the vast majority of pro-ID posters there, and certainly the moderators and subject contributors, are not “anti-science” at all, nor “sneer” at science; rather, they have what is IMO a legitimate concern over the anti-religious, anti-theist, pro-materialist agenda that many of those currently in positions of power in the institutions of science blatantly demonstrate.
I would agree that not all contributors to UD are anti-science but there is, nonetheless, a prominent strand of such thinking there. Many of the original posts mock the speculative excesses of evolutionary psyschology, for example, or seem to gloat over instances of where science has apparently got it wrong. Those occasions where the author of such comments has got it wrong themselves pass largely unremarked. The overall impression is of an anti-science advocacy site.
I will grant that there are a few contributors to UD who are critical of the perceived atheist/materialist stance of many scientists in public fora as improper because it associates science with atheism. They hold, as I do, that the most science can say on such questions is that, following Laplace, it has found no need for such hypotheses thus far. While it may be true that a majority of scientists hold atheistic views it is misleading to suggest that they are endorsed by science as a whole.
That said, my impression of UD is that the majority of contributors are critical of science because they believe it is hostile and threat to their religion. They feel that science is perceived as a source of knowledge that is more reliable and authoritative than that offered by the various faiths which is thereby undermined. One slightly amusing response is the attempt to cast science as just another religion. Those who do so seem to be oblivious to the contradiction: on the one hand, religion is presented as a way of knowing that is fully the equal of science, on the other hand, the authority of science is supposed to be undermined by calling it just another religion, implying that religion is a lesser form of knowledge and science is to be dragged down to that level. Unfortunately, much as they would like to, they can’t have it both ways
There is without doubt a very vocal group of scientists and advocates of science who believe that it does make religious beliefs untenable They highlight the harm that has been done – and is still being done – in the name of the various faiths as evidence that we would all be better off without it. My own view is that this is reactionary and most prominent in the United States. It is a response to the extreme hostility felt by many Americans towards any form of non-belief and the excessive influence of such religious beliefs on the society and politics of that country.
My own view is that it is true that, over the millennia, a great deal of blood has been spilled in the name of various religions. It is also true that huge numbers have been killed in the name of the various political ideologies, which were in some cases atheistic, that gained power in the twentieth century. I would argue that it is further true that trying to compare body counts is a pointless distraction. The real lesson to be taken is the dangers of absolutist thinking.
In spite of the posturing and boastfulness of some, we are mostly well aware of our own weakness and vulnerability. Instinctively, we crave the kind of reliable knowledge about the world in which we find ourselves that will give us a good handle on it and increase our chances of survival. We are all too easily seduced by anyone or any belief system which appears to offer such certainty, especially in times of heightened insecurity. The danger is that, once convinced of the absolute truth of such beliefs, there are some who will have no doubt that they are fully justified in doing almost anything to defend and promote such them. Thus we have the spectacle of William Lane Craig apparently feeling compelled to defend and justify the massacring of children, even though I have no doubt it is something he would never do himself, because it is something reported in his Bible as being required of believers and approved by his God.
Thus we come back to Oliver Cromwell’s impassioned plea, used as the motto for this blog:
I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken.
WJM:
Your use of terminology is incredibly muddled and ambivalent.
Yes. That’s pretty much exactly what I meant.
No. Not at all. Unless you, once again, use the word *logic* in a way that is completely different from the way everybody else uses it – basically in the way everybody else uses the word *cognition*.
Models and predictions: yes. Interpretations: sometimes. Evidence is not a synonym for truthful conclusion. Evidence is a prerequisite for truthful conclusions.
Who ever said they are arbitrary? I said exactly the opposite: of course they are not arbitrary because they are derived from generalizations of actual observations!
No. Evidence is not *developed*, it is observed and collected. Relationships between things are first observed before any inferences can be made about them, ie., before any logic can be applied to them. The majority of people describe what you describe here by the terms observation, perception, or cognition.
Wrong again. I don’t axiomatically hold the view that our senses deliver meaningful information. I consider the information I receive from my senses as provisionally reliable and meaningful, because experience indicates that it is, more or less. I behave in accordance with that sensory information. In cases where the information I received is not reliable, my behavior has undesired consequences. In such cases I either adjust the way I interpret the sensory information I received (sometimes applying logic, sometimes simply adjusting associations) or I adjust the way I behave in response to that category of information. No axiomatic assumptions required or even useful.
IOW, the way humans use sensory information is via feedback and reinforcement processes. nothing axiomatic about it.
Some more thoughts to your use of the word *purpose*, which is basically equivalent to the common definitions of the words *urge* or *desire*. You said this:
That is obviously wrong. Universal human purposes (under your use of the word), including moral ones, are generated by a multitude of biological necessities.
To bring this discussion point back around to where it started:
This is what you said:
“Since the principles of logic themselves must be held on an a priori, self-evidently true basis, one can hardly claim that a worldview is irrational if it holds a statement to be self-evidently true.”
Even adopting the way you use the word logic (i.e. perception or cognition), this statement doesn’t make any sense at all. Attributes like *a-priori*, *evident* or *self-evident* are not applicable to the concept of perception. Thus my point stands:
Your worldview premise, whether discussed for hypothetical or practical purposes, is incoherent because it is based on the assumption that you happen to know X to be true in the absence of any evidence that X could be true or that you could be capable of knowing this.
Aggravated of course by the fact that a false premise does, indeed, imply ANYTHING (I recommend reading this: http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/55617.html). So, my and other’s repeated point that your premise (X is true) is flawed DOES indeed radically influence your argument about hypothetical implications.
William J Murray,
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I didn’t say “interest rates”, I said “interest rate calculations”.
While interest rates themselves may be arbitrary, the procedure of calculating them is not.
We invented the processes of logic just like we invented the processes of interest calculations.
Madbat said:
You are using two equivalent terms to hide the self-referential nature of your staetments above. “Information” and “experience” are equivalent terms; experience is the process of accumulating information, and information comes from experience (in your system). Your statement above is entirely self-referential.
You use sensory information (experience) to check the validity of sensory information (experience)? You can’t use a ruler to check its own length. You have nothing else to use to check the validity in your system since, under your argument, logic is nothing more than a system set up from sensory information.
Please tell me how you arrived at the conclusion that reliable information yields desirable consequences and unreliable information yields undesirable consequences without using circular reasoning (referring back to the information/experience).
What is the “I” that you refer to, other than the set of experiences and processing information that you claim it is adjusting?
What you have written above is chock full of axiomatic assumptions, circular reasoning, self-reference and begged questions. Not recognizing them is not the same as not having them.
Tell me, is the “I” you refer to something other than the accumulated information and information processing you are referring to? Is it something other than collected information how that information happens to interact (information processing) due to biological mechanisms? You left a giant begged question there on the table – an explanation of what the “I” is and why you assume it is capable of any such intervention in the information gathering and processing system.
Why isn’t it? Didn’t we invent the rules of mathematics? Can’t we just change them if we want to?
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The easy answer:
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STEP 1: Invent “rules”.
STEP 2: Follow them.
William J Murray,
Yes. Do you understand what the terms *feedback loop* and *reinforcement* mean? If not, look them up.
desirable consequences: being alive, happiness, freedom of pain; undesirable consequences: being dead, unhappiness, pain; OF COURSE I perceive, i.e. experience both categories of things (the original information I perceive AND the information about the consequences of my behavior in reaction to the information) through my senses; wanting to solicit the desirable consequences I experience and avoid the undesirable consequences I experience are innate desires, according to our current objective state of information (objective used in the sense I define it, not the so far unintelligible way you defined it, see below) produced by biological necessities. I call the kind of information that allows me to behave so I can achieve the former and avoid the latter reliable. That’s reinforcement and feedback at work.
Again: OF COURSE I perceive, i.e. experience both categories of things (the original information I perceive AND the information about the consequences of my behavior in reaction to the information) through my senses. That’s exactly WHY I called all this information PROVISIONALLY reliable and meaningful. They are both subjectively acquired pieces of information, the ONLY way information is accessible to us. That’s exactly WHY I use the word *objective* ONLY in relation to things that can be observed by all observers alike, that all observers can agree upon, and that are observed by anyone who cares to look. An *objective truth* in my vocabulary is a collection of subjective observations that every observer can agree upon.
Under the meaning of axiom as: *a self-evident truth*:
No. Show just ONE axiomatic assumption in my reasoning.
Of course the “I” I refer to is equivalent to the accumulated information and information processing I am referring to. I have no idea what *intervention* you are referring to? Adjustments of behavioral reactions are an integral part of the information gathering and processing system, that includes reinforcement and feedback operations, among many other gathering and processing operations.
To get back from the sidetrack to the actual point: the origins of perception, experience, and logic are irrelevant to this point. I could agree with you that logic is *self-evidently existent*, and still this point stands:
Your premise, whether discussed for hypothetical or practical purposes, is incoherent (lacking logical connection) and irrational (lacking sound judgement) because it is based on the assumption that you are privileged, over people that disagree with you, to know X to be true, in the absence of any evidence, reason, or justification that X could be true, that you could be privileged, or that you could be capable of knowing either of these things.
To make this really simple:
Living things (humans, flatworms, amoebae, daffodils) have sensory systems that receive and process information from the environment. This information is translated into reactions, some of them behavioral. Living things that receive information through their sensory systems that does not allow them to react in a certain manner do not survive and reproduce as well as their conspecifics whose sensory systems DO allow them to receive information that enables them to react in this certain manner. Because of the fitness effect of this manner of reaction, we call that manner *beneficial* or *desirable*. And we call the sensory system that delivers information that results in beneficial behavior *reliable*. The sensory systems continue receiving information, including information on the effects of the reactions. Some of this information comes from the organism itself (e.g. pain). Those organisms whose sensory systems again allow them to react in a certain manner to this information (e.g. avoidance of the specific behavioral reaction to the initial information, i.e. negative reinforcement) survive and reproduce better than their conspecifics that are unable to react in this manner. Again, for the same reason, we call this manner of reaction *beneficial*, and the associated sensory system *reliable*. And we call the class of information, i.e. experience, that leads to positive reinforcement *desirable*, and the class of experience that leads to negative reinforcement *undesirable*.
No step in this process contains or requires any assumptions on the part of the organism, let alone *axiomatic* ones.
Yes. In logic, it’s called circular reasoning. You cannot check the length of a ruler by using the same ruler.
William J Murray,
Feedback loops can be negative, (e.g. to prevent audio feedback), positive, (e.g. to force an output to latch for digital logic), or to sample a signal, (e.g. a PLL circuit ).
I have never seen it used as term for “circular reasoning” in logic and don’t even see how it could be applied in this way in logic.
Where did you see this?
X cannot verify itself. It’s like saying that the Bible is true because the Bible says it is true. The Bible cannot be used to verify itself.
LOL. No. I’m not sure we can continue this discussion in any meaningful way if you keep using words in ways that are so far removed from their usual use in the English language.
The concepts of feedback and reinforcement have nothing to do with circular reasoning. Nothing at all. They don’t have anything at all to do with reasoning to start with. What I was describing is NOT a process of reasoning, it is a process of receiving and utilizing sensory information.
Your response above is a rhetorical statement regarding the bible, but that is not the point in contention.
The point in contention is that the term “feedback loop” is equivalent to the term, “circular reasoning” when used in the context of logic.
I went to the effort of “showing” you that a feedback loop is not what you think it is.
I wrote this:
I consider the information I receive from my senses as provisionally reliable and meaningful, because experience indicates that it is, more or less. I behave in accordance with that sensory information. In cases where the information I received is not reliable, my behavior has undesired consequences. In such cases I either adjust the way I interpret the sensory information I received (sometimes applying logic, sometimes simply adjusting associations) or I adjust the way I behave in response to that category of information. IOW, the way humans use sensory information is via feedback and reinforcement processes.
Because you obviously misunderstood that, I elaborated and formalized it with the following statement:
Living things (humans, flatworms, amoebae, daffodils) have sensory systems that receive and process information from the environment. This information is translated into reactions, some of them behavioral. Living things that receive information through their sensory systems that does not allow them to react in a certain manner do not survive and reproduce as well as their conspecifics whose sensory systems DO allow them to receive information that enables them to react in this certain manner. Because of the fitness effect of this manner of reaction, we call that manner *beneficial* or *desirable*. And we call the sensory system that delivers information that results in beneficial behavior *reliable*. The sensory systems continue receiving information, including information on the effects of the reactions. Some of this information comes from the organism itself (e.g. pain). Those organisms whose sensory systems again allow them to react in a certain manner to this information (e.g. avoidance of the specific behavioral reaction to the initial information, i.e. negative reinforcement) survive and reproduce better than their conspecifics that are unable to react in this manner. Again, for the same reason, we call this manner of reaction *beneficial*, and the associated sensory system *reliable*. And we call the class of information, i.e. experience, that leads to positive reinforcement *desirable*, and the class of experience that leads to negative reinforcement *undesirable*.
Does this, to you, bear any resemblance to “the Bible is true because the Bible says it is true”???
It seems to be a recurring pattern here that WJM wants words to mean whatever he personally feels they should mean.
Maybe this is where your misunderstanding of my explanations stems from:
When you say this: “our senses deliver to us meaningful information” and this: “You use sensory information (experience) to check the validity of sensory information (experience)?”
…you may mean *meaningful* and *valid* in relation to one of your ideas of something completely outside the sensory information, e.g. some *self-evident* truth or something *which exists in and of itself regardless of interpretation by that which lies in the mind of the observer (= your definition of objectively existent things)*.
That kind of validation would obviously require axiomatic assumptions. And because it would require those, it would not be a validation at all.
But that’s not what I mean (which should be obvious from 1) my clear onwards elaborations and 2) because I find the concept of self-evidence incoherent and meaningless, and your definition of objective existence so far unintelligible, still awaiting your clarifications).
What I mean is: Sensory information (i.e. experience) is (at least most of the time) meaningful and valid for the production of reactions that will result in certain categories of experiences. And again: yes, I use experiences (e.g. pain) to check the validity of experiences (e.g. that hurdle looks too tall to jump over), mediated, of course, by behavioral reactions (e.g. trying to jump that hurdle). And the process of avoiding the behavioral reaction (not trying to jump the hurdle) upon a repeat experience (seeing another hurdle that looks to tall to jump over) in response to the previously resulting experience (pain) is called negative reinforcement.
No assumptions, no axioms and no circularity.
I hope you finally understand that now.
LOL.
I’ll take that as a clear “no, you do not understand feedback loop.”
I want to hear more about the sensory system of the Daffodil!
I understand what a feedback loop is, but that feedback loops exist in the physical world is not at issue here; what is at issue is how one establishes and arbits the information being acquired and translated for processing and use, which is why the examples of presumably non-sentient entities operating in such systems is a non-sequitur. Another problem in the feedback-loop scenario is the presentation of the self as some kind of arbiting agent that can supervene over the process.
The argument madbat and I are having is about axiomatic assumptions and if worldviews (belief systems), whether one realizes it or not, rely on them. Unless someone is going to argue that daffodils and animals have belief systems about their experiences and recognize themselves as an “I”, such examples are irrelevant and only serve to avoid the subject of the debate.
All information humans receive from experience is interpreted, first by senses, then by mind. The mind organizes and categorizes experience. Because “A=A”, or identification of a phenomena as a thing in itself separate from oneself and other things seems to be a ubiquitous and fundamental point doesn’t save it from being an axiomatic assumption for beings with minds.
Let’s look at what madbat said:
First, there is the begged question of the “I”; what is it, and how does it actually function in the above statement. The second unaddressed, begged question is: how is the sensory information processed in the first place? How does one identify any experience, reach any interpretation, process any information and figure out an application thereof, and then assess outcomes as “reliable” and/or “meaningful”? How is that process being conducted? Madbat is completely ignoring the process as if incoming information processes itself.
He not only fails to account for this process, but refers back to the brute incoming information itself as if it provides these conclusions. Does he see words written at the edge of a cliff that says “it is a reliable prediction that if you jump off of this cliff you will fall and be killed”? No; sensory information does not provide theories or conclusions about predictive reliability or meaning; that information is developed in the mind. Conclusions about the reliability of sensory information, and conclusions about the meaning of sensory information, is not provided by the sensory information itself. If it was, we’d all have the same conclusions and we’d all find the same meaning thereof.
As if unreliable information never produces desired consequences. As if reliable information never produces undesired consequences. Reliable = desirable is an assumptive non-sequitur.
But, above madbat has said that it is the incoming information itself that provides conclusions about whether or not it is reliable and information; why should any adjusting be necessary? And, according to what principle or concept is it adjusted? To reach more desirable ends? Desirable according to what concept of “desirable”? Anyone’s subjective desire? What if someone doesn’t agee with the “reliable=desirable” maxim? What if one rathers that their beliefs about experience be truthful, whether or not they are reliable or desirable?
Your reliable=desirable belief system maxim is an an axiomatic assumption.
Also, If I reach more desirable outcomes by adjusting my system so that I behave as if a god exists and believe it to be so, then according to madbat’s system (based on the rule of generating desirable outcomes), believing and behaving as if god exists, and as if axiomatic premises are necessary, and as if self-evidently true moral statements exist, it is perfectly valid according to Madbat’s reliable=desirable maxim.
But wait, this is not how madbat is actually arguing. Even though he is making a case that belief systems require no axiomatic premises, no self-evident truths, and that they are ultimately judged simply upon how effectively the produce desired outcomes, he makes the following case about my premise:
Leaving aside the fact that I haven’t claimed to know X to be true (but rather, have only said that one must assume X is true), what difference does any of the above make, as long as my system of thought reliably generates desired outcomes? Why doesn’t madbat ask me what kind of outcomes my belief system generates, since that is the arbiting principle by which he apparently judges belief systems?
The people who created modern science (and most of modern civilization) believed in god, first principles, and self-evidently true statements. I’d say the reliability and desirability of the results are pretty evident. But madbat hasn’t once referred to outcomes in any of his arguments against my positions.
So, when madbat argues that my views are incoherent and irrational by (erroneously) referring to what I claim to know without support, he has abandoned his own methodology of judgement from desirable results and argues as if logic is the final arbiter of my argument; but if logic and not experiential results is the final arbiter of my argument, then we must accept logical principles as axiomatically true and capable of judging the truth of claims independent of outcomes. But he has said he has no such a priori commitments; if so, why is he arguing as if logic can make his case?
IOW, if logic can be used to deem my argument (about the necessity of accepting axiomatic premises) irrational without referring to the experienced outcomes of my views, then my argument succeeds. Madbat isn’t using (indeed, he hasn’t even asked for) information from my experience about how successful and reliable my views are in generating desirable outcomes; but he is still passing judgement on my views as if he can assess their validity based on nothing but an analysis via logical principles (even though his use is erroneous, since I never claimed to know X, but only claimed that we must assume X).
Madbat has assumed the principles of logic can arbit the validity of statements (just as I said we must), and not once asked me about the actual reliability of the outcomes of my system of thought. He is judging my argument via reference to axiomatic principle and not experienced outcome which in itself requires acceptance of my premise and abandonment of his.
And I suppose you’re going to claim you know this because that’s what your “feedback and reinforcement” system tells you, without explaining why it is apparently telling different humans different things. You failed to account for what is processing, interpreting, theorizing, concluding, and attempting to supervene the system in your scenario, other than by calling it an “I”. How does the “I” process, interpret, theorize, conclude, and attempt to change the feedback loop system? If it is a part of the feedback loop system, can the “I” really impose it’s “will” on it, if such “will” is really just part of the system itself?
Isn’t the “I” and “imposing will” really just an illusion? Aren’t people and what they think really just the product of feedback information loop, as physics and biology determines in each individual case?
Another necessary axiomatic assumption is that whatever the “I” is, it has the free will capacity to supervene over the feedback loop system, or else this part of your argument is meaningless.
Incoming sensory information does not process itself, and cannot validate itself as “meaningful” or “reliable” or even “desirable”; if it did, then all humans would process, interpret, and conclude identically, and we’d all desire the same outcomes. Something else must be interpreting, evaluating, theorizing, and concluding the meaning, reliability and desirability of such information, even if it doesn’t use those terms or even understand what it is doing.
That “other thing” must be interpreting, evaluating, theorizing and concluding according to some principle or method that is not instructed by the information itself or else none of us would have a valid argument to make against any other view. If my system of interpreting, evaluating, theorizing and concluding is itself determined by the brute incoming information (as your argument indicates, with self just being part of the process), then whatever belief system it generates (represented by the term “I”) is as valid as any other if we accept that there are no a priori, axiomatic principles that all such systems can be evaluated by.
To conclude: if your view is true, then my “I” and belief system are as essentially valid as yours or anyone else’s, because it is what the brute incoming information generated in me as true and valid and it succeeds in producing desirable results; it is only if my view is correct – that we must accept axiomatic premises (such as the principles of logic) as valid and a supervening means of arbiting valid systems of thought – that you have the basis and means by which to argue that my views are not valid, regardless of whether or not brute incoming information generated that view, and regardless of whether or not it is successful at reliably producing desirable results.
For your rebuttal against my position to be valid, my argument (axiomatic principles) must be valid. If your position is valid, you have no meaningful case to make against my views.
In essence, you are identifying yourself as a compleat solipsist.
That’s fine. But the only methods of reasoning available to the solipsist are making stuff up, and circular reasoning. Those of us who are not solipsists find that all rather pointless.
So, let’s look at this feedback loop system. If the “I” is not an incorporated part of it, then Madbat must tell me what the “I” is and account for it in his feedback loop system, which would mean that the “I” is not part of his system of how things become known, and so whatever he says the “I” is must be accepted on an a priori, axiomatic basis.
If the “I” is an incorporated part of the feedback loop system, then whatever the “I” thinks it is, and however the “I” looks at the system itself, and whatever the “I” thinks is knowledge and how knowledge is acquired, was generated by the system. Since logic and all other forms of thinking and beliefs (under this system) must all be products of the feedback loop system, none of them are superior or supervene over it. IOW, there is no “standard” logic which actually exists that governs over individually-generated versions of logic. Whatever the feedback loop system produces in an individual about what “correct thought” is, or truth, or logic, or “the way things are”, or whether or not a priori axioms and self-evidently true statements must be accepted, that is simply the generated state of their thought – generated by the same categorical feedback loop process.
Thus, there is no arbiting principle (such as logic) that can find the thought product of any particular feedback loop process (various individual’s beliefs) “erroneous” or “irrational”, because what is rational, and what is error, and what is true, and what is right, are just whatever the feedback loop process generates as thought in any particular individual. There is nothing else (no a priori, axiomatic or self-evidently true principles) to make one’s case by or with.
IOW, my perspective and beliefs are as true as madbats, and his no more true or right than a fundamentalist muslim or someone in the loony bin, because they were all generated by the same tautological feedback-loop process, and there exists no self-existent, a priori, axiomatic, self-evidently true principles by which to discern one as better than another.
How we view each other’s systems, and how we evaluate them, indeed how we even argue about them is just via whatever subjective system the feedback system happened to create in each individual case.
Thus, arguing that my view is wrong, in incoherent, or irrational is like an oak leaf arguing that the shape of a maple leaf is wrong, irrational or incoherent just because it happens to be different from your own shape. It is only if there are non-subjective, accepted-as-true, axiomatic principles that we accept can objectively distinguish between right and wrong, coherent and incoherent, rational and irrational that one can meaningfully criticize another person’s views on that basis.
Between the two of us, only my position offers the grounds by which either of our positions can be meaningfully criticized as irrational, incoherent, or wrong according to a meaningful, accepted-as-valid objective standard. If all we have, and all we are, is individually-generated, tautological feedback loops, then your feedback-loop criticism of the product of my feedback-loop product is the pot calling the kettle black.
You have no basis to criticize the product of my feedback loop other than by assuming that an a priori, self-existent, axiomatic means (via self-evidently true logical principles) of objective evaluation exists, which contradicts your argument.
No, I’m not. I’m actually arguing against the feedback-loop, material, cause & effect solipsim that madbat is describing.
This claim is irrational.
You claim your system of thought “reliably generates desired outcomes” despite the fact that you yourself cannot claim that state X can be “relied” on.
William J Murray,
I believe you still don’t understand what a feedback loop is.
You have taken the term and elevated it to the level of a conscious agent.
A feedback loop in a gasoline engine may be as simple as a spring.
You cannot equate this spring to a complete gasoline engine.
Unless the system by which what is rational, and what is irrational, is accepted as existing on an independent, a priori, axiomatic basis self-evidently true principles, the claim that some other staement “is irrational” is nothing but rhetoric. Irrational by what standard?
You’re the pot calling the kettle black.
Whatever you mean by the above (I can’t figure it out), it only has value as a valid criticism against my perspective if we both agree to posit axiomatic, self-evidently true principles of logic (or some other presumably objective system of evaluation) and we also posit that we each have a supervening free will that can independently (independent of the feedback loop) conduct an evaluation based upon those princples.
If all we have are our subjective, tautological feedback loops, the the simple feedback loop sensation I have that you are wrong and I am right and the sensation that my argument makes sense, and the sensation that my system of thought reliably produces desirable outcomes, is all I need to conclude (since it is not really “me”, but the system itslef doing the concluding) that you are wrong and I am right.
My feedback loop system concludes you are wrong and I am right, so by the feedback loop system of knowledge acquisition, and because we have no axiomatic princples by which we can arbit our feedback loop conclusions against, you are wrong and I am right.
You have no basis for further challenge unless you refer to some axiomatic principle we must both posit as an authoritative evaluator of feedback-loop-produced beliefs and views. Arguing, essentially, that your feedback loop system concludes that my feedback loop conclusions are wrong is of no more weight than my conclusion to the contrary.
Since all of our definitions and views of what a “feedback loop” system is, is generated by our own individual feedback loop systems, and there is no means of evaluating that view from any perspective other than that of within the feedback loop system, then a “feedback loop system” means whatever my feedback loop system thinks it means.
Not I; I asked madbat what the “I” was in his feecback loop system, and he said:
Thus, madbat has nothing other than the feedback loop system itself (which “I” represents in aggregate form) by which to render judgements, assessments and conclusions. IOW, if “I” say so (aggregate of feedback loop system), then it is true, false, rational, irrational, knowledge, foolishness, for no other reason than that “I” have said so.
Madbats argument is entirely self-referential. I’m wrong, in his argument, simply because his aggregate, self-referential feedback loop says so. And so, he’s wrong for the same reason from my perspective; my self-referential feedback loop says so.
Without both he and I agreeing to arbit our argument via some axiomatic, presumed objective prinicple, we are stuck at “because I said so”.
I’ll make a better effort at explaining myself.
This claim is irrational **because** you claim your system of thought “reliably generates desired outcomes” despite the fact that you yourself cannot claim that state X can be “relied” on.
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Now to clarify the above statement.
By your claiming that state X must be “assumed” to be true, your are implying that an actual examination of X may prove it to be false or inconclusive.
That means, you cannot **rely** on the state, (TRUE or FALSE) of X, and your system of thought does not **reliably** generate desired outcomes.
In effect, your actual output is dependent on ignoring your actual input.
So the question is, why should I pay any attention to any of your criticisms whatsoever, since all they can be are the particular, idiosyncratic outputs of other individual feedback loops systems that admit they are not (and can not be) referring to any commodity whatsoever that I should consider authoritative over the conclusions of my own idiosyncratic system?
William J Murray,
Here is what madbat089 actually said.
You however, have elevated the term “feedback loop” to mean a conscious agent.
Please explain to me what **you** mean by a “feedback loop”.
We have to use the same terms when debating just as we have to use the same language.
Having one person speaking Japanese and another French, is going to lead to a lot of misunderstanding as will the misuse of terms.
No, I’m not. My implication is that X cannot be “actually examined” (which why it must be assumed), and that we should assume it because if we do not, our worldview & arguments crash into self-referential nonsense (such as is currently happening with you and madbat).
You don’t have to know, or be able to prove, the state of X to rely on it. Non-sequitur. I don’t know and I cannot prove that other people actually exist, but I rely upon that proposition and them quite a bit. I don’t know and cannot prove that anything exists independent of my experience, but I rely upon that view quite a bit. I don’t know and cannot prove that some horrific calamity won’t occure to me in my immediate future, but I rely upon that view as I make plans and go about my day. My system of thought reliably generates desirable outcomes whether or not the axiomatic premises I hold can be “shown” to be “true”, just as my wife reliably acts as if she loves me whether or not it can be proven that she does.
No, it’s just dependent on recognizing the self-referential limitations of sensory input and accepting that additional, external commodities are required as postulates (even if unprovable) in order to even be able to meaningfully attempt to have a logically coherent, consistent, and arguable belief system.
Without reference to external, self-existent commodities (such as the free will self and the principles of logic), the self-referential nature of the feedback loop system destroys all basis upon which one might tender a meaningful and binding argument.
I have no reason to consider your feedback-loop argument as binding over mine, or even better than mine, when mine is extremely successful, and success of the system (however I define success) is all that matters in the feedback-loop model.
My feedback loop system, which madbat proposes generates all our information and knowledge because even reasoning is a product of that system, says otherwise. Why should I adopt your claim over mine, unless you are postulating that there is an actual truth independent of our subjective interpretations?
But that is not even close to what madbat is describing.
Clearly, you still do not understand “feedback loop.”
Just as clearly, you have given ideas and logic primacy, and you consider the physical world as little more than an intrusion that interferes with the solipsistic realm you are building in your imagination.
“Just as clearly” by what means of evaluation?
Unless you are evaluating my views by logical principles assumed to be valid and applicable to all perspectives and claims regardless of what produced them (supervening over the product of physical systems), and unless you expect me to acquiesce to the findings of such an evaluation thereby regarding my own views as subservient to the demands of imagined logic, and unless you are determining their value/validity via imagined logic and not by the actual, physical outcomes they produce, you yourself, just now, in your assessment of the value/validity of my views, are referring to axiomatic principles “in your imagination” instead of physical outcomes and expect the same principles and understanding thereof to simultaneously exist “in my imagination” according to which I should change my highly successful and productive views towards some other view that may or may not be as successful just because they don’t conform to your imagined, authoritative ruleset.
If, on the other hand, by “Just as clearly” you mean as evaluated by your own entirely subjective view without reference to any axiomatic principle you claim others should adhere to, who cares?
Material solipsism is the necessary consequence to what he is arguing, especially since he has consumed the “I” within his feedback loop information generating system.
William J Murray,
Please explain to me what **you** mean by a “feedback loop”.
sez WJM: “…’feedback loop system’ means whatever my feedback loop system thinks it means.”
Wow. Just… wow. It’s been apparent for a while (and has been explicitly remarked upon by others) that our boy WJM blows off consensus definitions of words as and when he jolly well feels like it, but I would never have expected WJM himself to openly acknowledge that he’s an adherent of Humpty Dumpty’s “when I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less” paradigm.
Anybody want to put together a set of “pathologies of cogitation” bingo cards to use whilst reading WJM’s verbiage?
Toronto:
What is the basis by which you expect me to judge which of our arguments is more valid?
I didn’t openly acknowledge it. In case you didn’t notice it, I was empoying madbat’s hypothetical “feedback loop” model as the basis for that statement. IOW, IF madbat’s FL model is true, THEN whatever my FL says is true, is as true as anything gets.
Obviously (if you’ve been following the argument) I don’t subscribe to that model myself.
I didn’t ask you to judge anything.
I would like an explanation of the term “feedback loop” as used by you.
The reason I need it, is so that I can understand any argument of yours, where you use that term.
Of everyone in this debate, you seem to be the odd man out in your definition of the term.
For instance, here is an example of a feedback loop.
In recording studios, each channel will have a compressor and limiter for the input signal. These circuits incorporate “feedback loops”.
However, neither a compressor or limiter has anything to do with whether the chorus should be sung by a choir instead of the lead singer.
In this analogy, feedback loops are not intelligent agents that understand songwriting.
Please, if you want to have a **clear** debate, explain to me, what **you** mean, by a feedback loop.
We will then all somehow come to a reasonable use of the term.
Then I won’t attempt to judge what your posts mean.
William J Murray,
Okay, we’ll let readers watch you completely misunderstand the world around you a line at a time.
You should ask “StephenB” and “kairosfocus” to “judge” how “well” you’re doing in a debate where you can’t explain a term that you’re actually using yourself.
———————————————
I would like an explanation of the term “feedback loop” as used by you.
The reason I need it, is so that I can understand any argument of yours, where you use that term.
Of everyone in this debate, you seem to be the odd man out in your definition of the term.
For instance, here is an example of a feedback loop.
In recording studios, each channel will have a compressor and limiter for the input signal. These circuits incorporate “feedback loops”.
However, neither a compressor or limiter has anything to do with whether the chorus should be sung by a choir instead of the lead singer.
In this analogy, feedback loops are not intelligent agents that understand songwriting.
Please, if you want to have a **clear** debate, explain to me, what **you** mean, by a feedback loop.
We will then all somehow come to a reasonable use of the term.
So, let’s look at the development of the “feedback loop” concept in context.
This begins – generally – with madbat responding to one of my posts about having to accept logical axioms on an a priori basis. where madbat responds:
After I point out that all evidence and interpretations are predicate upon a priori views, madbat and I basically agree that the terminology of logic is a descriptor of specific ways in which humans think, but disagree on whether or not that “way of thinking” is self-existent in mind, where I end up stating:
To which Madbat eventually rebuts:
And then comments on his own explanation, immediately after:
After which I asked:
To which madbat responds:
Later, to more fully explain his “feedback loop” position, he wrote:
It is clear from this that madbat that has put forth the explanation that the whole process of information gathering from sensory data, to whatever involvement the “I” has in producing behavior (including forming beliefs and making choices), to the actual actions (in terms of both words and behavior) of a human, is all part of his aggregate feedback loop, and that is how I am addressing and arguing the term “feedback loop”; as it refers to how madbat has portrayed, explained and fleshed out the concept here, not according to “my” definition of “feedback loop”.
I’m using madbat’s definition, as he has fully described it, in the context he has provided. IF there is something in operation in the process that is not a part of the aggregate feedback loop process, then – as I’ve already challenged – he needs to identify it and tell me how he knows, or has come to believe, that it (this exterior thing) exists at all, since its existence must be accounted for outside of the feedback loop system.
No you are not using his definition.
Here is madbat089.
To which I agree.
My recording studio example is in line with madbat’s definition of “feedback loop”, not yours.
The compressor/limiter feedback loops know nothing about music, yet without them, the information content of the recording might be unrecognizable because of excessive clipping of the input signal.
What then is “your” definition of “feedback loop”?
That’s a long sentence. You might try using several shorter sentences.
Natural language is not a logic calculus, and human reason is not based on the use of logic.
Toronto:
Madbat said:
Is there no reasoning or logic involved in consideration and meaning-finding process? Of course there is.
Is there no reasoning involved in choosing behavior in accordance with sensory information that has been processed by the “I”? Of course there is. Is there no reasoning involved in how the “I” adjusts behavior? Of course there is. Madbat sums that up with “In Other Words”, equating the whole process to a feedback loop system (FLS).
Note that I specifically asked madbat about the “I” he was referring to in the above comments, the “I” that is “considering” and “adjusting” and making choices and decisions both about how to interpret the information and how to act on it, to which madbat responds:
IOW (as he said himself), the FLS he himself described and fleshed out as the loop system, which the “I” represented in aggregate form.
You used the following quote:
To claim:
Which demonstrates to me that you failed to understand what Madbat said; he was saying that the concept of a FLS itself had nothing to do with reasoning as per my comment that an FLS in logic is circular reasoning. His point was that an FLS as it is physically manifest is not a reasoning system whatsoever, but rather a physical system that produces the “I” and materially generated all information involved in the self/environment relationship. IOW, the FLS madbat describes is the entire self/environment relationship as the individual experiences it.
In the same way, other things the FLS in question putatively produces – art, language, geometry, etc. – have have nothing to do with the concept of an FLS in that the FLS in question isn’t guided by or limited to those concepts it produces.
If madbat’s point was that reasoning was entirely separate from what the FLS produced, then he must account for how reasoning exists outside of the FLS he has described. He pointedly described the “I” that considers and adjusts and makes decisions and takes actions as the aggregate form of the FLS he was describing; if logic and reasoning is not part of that (generated by the FLS), then how is logic and reasoning involved? Not at all? Is madbat saying that nothing he says is logical or reasoned? That nothing he does is logical or reasoned? I doubt it. I think, rather, that he is saying that reasoning and logic are information processing modalities that are generated by the FLS that are “used” to consider and make choices by the “I” (not that it’s a well reasoned or well-grounded argument, but I think that it is what madbat is saying).
I think what madbat is saying is that reason and logic are concepts produced by the FL system, integrated into the FLS-created sense of “I”, and that the FLS is not itself inherently constructed by or constricted to the concepts of logic and reasoning.
My rebuttal, then, is precisely on-target; if reasoning and logic, indeed the entire “I” is produced by the FLS (as madbat said; does logic and reasoning exist outside of the “I”?), and there are no axiomatic principles we accept as self-evidently valid regardless of what any FLS produces, then there is no means by which madbat can argue that what my FLS produces in terms of an “I” that “considers” and “adjusts” towards a belief system is wrong other than “because I said so”. He cannot appeal to any universal principle to make his case that he holds binding over and above what each FLS produces.
Toronto:
Madbat said:
Is there no reasoning or logic involved in consideration and meaning-finding process? Of course there is.
Is there no reasoning involved in choosing behavior in accordance with sensory information that has been processed by the “I”? Of course there is. Is there no reasoning involved in how the “I” adjusts behavior? Of course there is. Madbat sums that up with “In Other Words”, equating the whole process to a feedback loop system (FLS).
Note that I specifically asked madbat about the “I” he was referring to in the above comments, the “I” that is “considering” and “adjusting” and making choices and decisions both about how to interpret the information and how to act on it, to which madbat responds:
IOW (as he said himself), the FLS he himself described and fleshed out as the loop system, which the “I” represented in aggregate form.
You used the following quote:
To claim:
Which demonstrates to me that you failed to understand what Madbat said; he was saying that the concept of a FLS itself had nothing to do with reasoning as per my comment that an FLS in logic is circular reasoning. His point was that an FLS as it is phy
Toronto,
Neil Rickert,
sically manifest is not a reasoning system whatsoever, but rather a physical system that produces the “I” and materially generated all information involved in the self/environment relationship. IOW, the FLS madbat describes is the entire self/environment relationship as the individual experiences it.
In the same way, other things the FLS in question putatively produces – art, language, geometry, etc. – have have nothing to do with the concept of an FLS in that the FLS in question isn’t guided by or limited to those concepts it produces.
If madbat’s point was that reasoning was entirely separate from what the FLS produced, then he must account for how reasoning exists outside of the FLS he has described. He pointedly described the “I” that considers and adjusts and makes decisions and takes actions as the aggregate form of the FLS he was describing; if logic and reasoning is not part of that (generated by the FLS), then how is logic and reasoning involved? Not at all? Is madbat saying that nothing he says is logical or reasoned? That nothing he does is logical or reasoned? I doubt it. I think, rather, that he is saying that reasoning and logic are information processing modalities that are generated by the FLS that are “used” to consider and make choices by the “I” (not that it’s a well reasoned or well-grounded argument, but I think that it is what madbat is saying).
I think what madbat is saying is that reason and logic are concepts produced by the FL system, integrated into the FLS-created sense of “I”, and that the FLS is not itself inherently constructed by or constricted to the concepts of logic and reasoning.
My rebuttal, then, is precisely on-target; if reasoning and logic, indeed the entire “I” is produced by the FLS (as madbat said; does logic and reasoning exist outside of the “I”?), and there are no axiomatic principles we accept as self-evidently valid regardless of what any FLS produces, then there is no means by which madbat can argue that what my FLS produces in terms of an “I” that “considers” and “adjusts” towards a belief system is wrong other than “because I said so”. He cannot appeal to any universal principle to make his case that he holds binding over and above what each FLS produces.
Mr. Rickert:
What is the basis by which you expect me to judge the validity of your arguments?
Madbat:
What is the basis by which you expect me to judge the validity of your arguments?
Sorry about the double post. You can delete the second one. It was a reply error to another post.