Some (e.g. Alexander Pruss) say that lying is always wrong, but I wonder. (The question arises in the context of teaching, where you have to teach what is to be taught, not what you yourself believe, and where the naturally sociological aspects of teaching can be counter-intuitive, as with the recent Michael Reiss stuff.)
......The familiar counter-example is the knock on the door in the dead of night. It’s the Nazis, come to ask you if there are any Jews hiding in your attic. There are (say) and if you don’t say anything, or if you say anything they don’t like, then they’ll investigate further. Convincing, I find; but I also suspect that the Nazis might not count. Perhaps they’ve left the linguistic community within which lying is wrong, by their actions, and joined the ranks of the dangerous animals. (Language-use is a pretty complicated business, I find.) So suppose you’re a doctor.
......Your patient is fatally ill, with no known cure. Still, if she thought there was a cure, there might be a placebo effect. So you might lie to her, e.g. tell her that there is a new drug being tested. She could join its trial (you might tell her), with a 50% chance of getting a placebo. You cannot tell her any more details (you might tell her) in the interests of scientific objectivity (and in her own interests, naturally). There need be no real trust betrayed here, because people might (say) know that you’re scrupulously honest in general, that you would only lie in this sort of case.
......Suppose your patient knows you might be lying, but doesn’t know that you are. (That would hardly affect the placebo effect because, in a real drug trial, she would know there was a good chance of not getting the drug, and would not know how good the drug would be even if she got it.) Is lying in such a case wrong (as it must be if lying is always wrong)? E.g., is it the lesser of two evils? But if so then what is the other, greater evil? Letting nature take its course when there is nothing (that is morally acceptable) to be done about it, presumably; but if so, what’s wrong with that?
......Of course, you (the doctor) could get the same (or maybe a better) result without lying, e.g. by giving your patient a homeopathic remedy; but the same question will arise: If you are peddling such remedies, is it wrong for you to lie as part of a system that enables doctors to avoid lying? You need not be lying when you say that homeopathey works (since it works insofar as placebos work), but you would have to lie at some point unless you were very naive (dangerously so, since you claim to be selling medicine), so why not let the professionals take care of such things directly?
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Monday, September 08, 2008
Cantor's Paradox Again
The positive integers (1, 2, 3, ...) are the products of endlessly reiterating the addition of 1, starting with 1. Given a common sense arithmetical realism, either they exist (so to speak) altogether like stars coexisting in space, forming a transfinite set—a quasi-spatial collection that is a definite thing in its own right—or else they are more accurately envisaged quasi-temporally, being never a completed collection (or set) but rather being (in Mill’s words) indefinitely extensible. It has become standard to suppose the former, so let us do that, for now.
......For any set there is also its power-set, the set whose members are the subsets (the parts) of the original set. And each set is (cardinally) smaller than its power-set because not only is the former a subset of the latter, there is no way to pair the members of the former with the members of the latter (the proof of that impossibility is basically Cantor’s diagonal argument, which uses axioms that are realistic enough). Reiterating the power-set operation, starting with the set of positive integers, yields an endless sequence of transfinite sets, whose (cardinal) sizes are the Beths. Now, if there was a set of all the other sets, its power-set would contain more sets, which is absurd, whence there is no such set. The sets—and similarly (although the argument is longer) the Beths—therefore form a different sort of collection, a proper class.
......That result is Cantor’s Paradox (which I last blogged about over a year ago). Each integer follows from some finite reiteration of their defining (and clearly definite) algorithm, so it exists, so to speak; they all do, whence one might expect that they form a set. And since that set exists (quasi-spatially), so each proper part of it exists (as a different collection), whence the power-set whose size is the next Beth exists; and so on. Each Beth results from a definite transfinite reiteration, so they all exist. Cantor’s paradox is so-called because realistic intuitions that the integers form a set tend to give the wrong answer for proper classes such as the Beths.
......Consequently those intuitions are not to be trusted; and indeed, there is also an empirical argument—from an equally realistic interpretation of quantum-mechanical probabilities—to the indefinite extensibility of applicable arithmetic. Mathematicians have for the most part preferred to reject such realisms, rather than (formalistic) set theory, presumably because of the predominant Naturalism within academic Science. But Cantor was himself a realist, and not afraid of theism, and might have rejected his set theory before either. (His way of keeping all three was to go paraconsistent when it came to theism, but that did not really solve the problem for arithmetical realism.)
......For any set there is also its power-set, the set whose members are the subsets (the parts) of the original set. And each set is (cardinally) smaller than its power-set because not only is the former a subset of the latter, there is no way to pair the members of the former with the members of the latter (the proof of that impossibility is basically Cantor’s diagonal argument, which uses axioms that are realistic enough). Reiterating the power-set operation, starting with the set of positive integers, yields an endless sequence of transfinite sets, whose (cardinal) sizes are the Beths. Now, if there was a set of all the other sets, its power-set would contain more sets, which is absurd, whence there is no such set. The sets—and similarly (although the argument is longer) the Beths—therefore form a different sort of collection, a proper class.
......That result is Cantor’s Paradox (which I last blogged about over a year ago). Each integer follows from some finite reiteration of their defining (and clearly definite) algorithm, so it exists, so to speak; they all do, whence one might expect that they form a set. And since that set exists (quasi-spatially), so each proper part of it exists (as a different collection), whence the power-set whose size is the next Beth exists; and so on. Each Beth results from a definite transfinite reiteration, so they all exist. Cantor’s paradox is so-called because realistic intuitions that the integers form a set tend to give the wrong answer for proper classes such as the Beths.
......Consequently those intuitions are not to be trusted; and indeed, there is also an empirical argument—from an equally realistic interpretation of quantum-mechanical probabilities—to the indefinite extensibility of applicable arithmetic. Mathematicians have for the most part preferred to reject such realisms, rather than (formalistic) set theory, presumably because of the predominant Naturalism within academic Science. But Cantor was himself a realist, and not afraid of theism, and might have rejected his set theory before either. (His way of keeping all three was to go paraconsistent when it came to theism, but that did not really solve the problem for arithmetical realism.)
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Lost Souls
Martha Jones, ex-time traveller and now working as a doctor for a UN task force, has been called to CERN where they're about to activate the Large Hadron Collider. Once activated, the Collider will fire beams of protons together recreating conditions a billionth of a second after the Big Bang - and potentially allowing the human race a greater insight into what the Universe is made of.
But so much could go wrong - it could open a gateway to a parallel dimension, or create a black hole - and now voices from the past are calling out to people and scientists have started to disappear... Where have the missing scientists gone? What is the secret of the glowing man? What is lurking in the underground tunnel? And do the dead ever really stay dead?
Lost Souls is on Radio 4 on Wednesday 10 September at 2.15pm. A report by EONR said there was "no conceivable danger"
But there have been fears about the possibility of a mini-black hole - produced in the collider - swelling so that it gobbles up the Earth... Critics have previously raised concerns that the production of weird hypothetical particles called strangelets in the LHC could trigger the mass conversion of nuclei in ordinary atoms into more strange matter - transforming the Earth into a hot, dead lump.The vacuum around a mini-black hole is a quantum-mechanical vacuum, full of short-lived virtual particle-antiparticle pairs. So it is almost bound to swallow one of those quanta (of the lowest energy level), which amounts to the creation of an actual particle or antiparticle. And mass-energy being conserved, that means a net loss of mass-energy to the mini-black hole, making it even smaller, etc. It would be better to call it a mini-white hole.
......Still, a black-hole is a crease in space-time, so who knows about the lost souls? There is a nice sci-fi trilogy about souls flooding back into the land of the living (and space-faring), following a Reality Dysfunction (involving an alien investigating spatial distortions in an energistic vacuum)—a nice blend of zombies, gangsters and astronauts, I thought.
Monday, September 01, 2008
Banach-Tarski
Following on from my last post, I’ve noticed that those introducing standard set theory often say it’s a good foundation for maths because it gave answers to questions that mathematicians were asking, a hundred years ago (even if it can’t show them to be the correct ones), e.g. the problem of integrating a curve that takes the value of 1 for irrationals between 0 and 1, and otherwise takes the value 0, to which standard measure theory gives the answer of 1. But note that such problems only arise within this kind of foundation. If continua are absolutely continuous (e.g. they contain 1/0 points) and simple infinities are indefinitely extensible, for example, then no such problems could arise because only a finite number of exceptional points could be given.
......Furthermore standard set theory throws up questions about measures that it certainly cannot answer. The pieces of the decomposed sphere of the Banach-Tarski paradox, for example, cannot be given any measures consistently—not even measures of 0. That paradox is usually 'resolved' by something like the assertion that it is really just an aspect of the proof of a theorem that certain sets of points cannot be given certain kinds of measure. (That assertion is usually followed by a question about why one would expect all sets of points to have measures, in view of such examples of counter-intuitive behaviour with infinite sets as Hilbert’s Hotel.) It’s usually been forgotten, by that stage of the exposition, why set theory was being entertained in the first place.
......Furthermore standard set theory throws up questions about measures that it certainly cannot answer. The pieces of the decomposed sphere of the Banach-Tarski paradox, for example, cannot be given any measures consistently—not even measures of 0. That paradox is usually 'resolved' by something like the assertion that it is really just an aspect of the proof of a theorem that certain sets of points cannot be given certain kinds of measure. (That assertion is usually followed by a question about why one would expect all sets of points to have measures, in view of such examples of counter-intuitive behaviour with infinite sets as Hilbert’s Hotel.) It’s usually been forgotten, by that stage of the exposition, why set theory was being entertained in the first place.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Philosophy of Mathematics
It's now 10 years since my interest in mathematics became an interest in the philosophy of mathematics, but I'm not much closer to knowing why mathematicians standardly assume an axiom of infinity (which is described in the second comment below)—not the historical or sociological reasons, but what philosophical (or amateur-scientific) reasons those applying standard mathematics have, for thinking that an axiom of infinity is true.
......That they have found few problems with that axiom in a hundred years, for example, is an answer in a different ball-park—cf. how medieval astronomers found few problems with assuming (what seems clear) that the stars circle (and the planets epicircle) a fixed Earth. Ultimately the interesting question was does the Earth turn? And while our being able to imagine a star in each cubic lightyear of some infinite space is at least a metaphysical reason (e.g. see Benardete's "Infinity: An essay in metaphysics"), mathematicians have naturally been moving away from their previous reliance upon such geometrical intuitions (towards greater rigour).
......Not that standard mathematicians need any very good metaphysical reasons for finding most interesting those models of arithmetic that contain such an axiom (e.g. there are benefits to having a common language, and there was originally the epistemic possibility to explore) but if they don't have any such reasons then physicists and metaphysicians should perhaps not presume that some such axiom is true. And note that the question arises given that numbers are objective (that proof aims at, but is not to be identified with, truth), so that it is hardly an answer to have included Constructive mathematics within academia.
......That they have found few problems with that axiom in a hundred years, for example, is an answer in a different ball-park—cf. how medieval astronomers found few problems with assuming (what seems clear) that the stars circle (and the planets epicircle) a fixed Earth. Ultimately the interesting question was does the Earth turn? And while our being able to imagine a star in each cubic lightyear of some infinite space is at least a metaphysical reason (e.g. see Benardete's "Infinity: An essay in metaphysics"), mathematicians have naturally been moving away from their previous reliance upon such geometrical intuitions (towards greater rigour).
......Not that standard mathematicians need any very good metaphysical reasons for finding most interesting those models of arithmetic that contain such an axiom (e.g. there are benefits to having a common language, and there was originally the epistemic possibility to explore) but if they don't have any such reasons then physicists and metaphysicians should perhaps not presume that some such axiom is true. And note that the question arises given that numbers are objective (that proof aims at, but is not to be identified with, truth), so that it is hardly an answer to have included Constructive mathematics within academia.
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Liars, Divine Liars, and Semantics
Let ‘L’ name the sentence, “This sentence is not expressing a truth.” L seems to be saying that L is not being used to say anything true. If so then, if L is expressing a truth then L is not expressing a truth, whence L is not expressing a truth. But then, L seems to have been expressing a truth—that L is not expressing a truth—after all. In short, L is a paradoxical Liar sentence.
......Letting ‘N’ denote (for brevity) the property of not expressing a truth, L seems to say that L is N, but hardly straightforwardly. If we let T be “L is N” then I can say that maybe L only seems to say that L is N because of its resemblance to T. Note that if L is expressing a truth—if it is not N—then L is N (paradoxically), but if T is not N then it only follows that L is N (relatively straightforwardly).
......On this (fairly popular and) Traditional Resolution, L is a special sort of nonsense (and hence not true), its apparent sense being due to its resemblance to T (which is simply true). A related paradox is therefore Moore’s. Let G be the sentence “George believes that S is certainly P, but S is not P.” G may be true, but if George utters G there is something odd about it (even with “George believes” replaced by “I believe”), and were George omniscient he could only say G by lying.
......There are many other ways to resolve the Liar (e.g. Kripke’s, e.g. see subsection 3.2 of the recent SEP entry on Self-Reference), but this is certainly one possibility. And why should we expect there to be a unique resolution? Natural linguistic entities are usually only partially (and fuzzily) defined—maybe such incompleteness facilitates their flexibility?—and Liar sentences are relatively artificial, so it may well be that different resolutions yield different (but equally legitimate) extensions of our languages.
......Atheistic uses of Divine Liars (as follows) have therefore begged the question (so far as I can see). Let ‘DL’ name the sentence “God knows that this sentence is N.” If DL is not N—if it is expressing a truth—then God (an omniscient being, here) exists, and DL is N. So DL is N. But if DL is N then God should know that DL is N, which is what DL seems to be saying; so the atheist is tempted to conclude that God does not exist.
......A theist, on the other hand, could regard DL as some evidence that such appearances are deceptive, at least when it comes to sentences like the Liar (and to a lesser extent with Moore’s paradox), and an intelligent agnostic would be unable to make much of DL in the absence of compelling reasons to regard a different way of resolving such sentences (e.g. Kripke's) as the only correct one (not just the conventional one, as that would certainly beg the philosophical question).
......Incidentally it is usual to use non-well-founded names to define Liars (as Grim defined his Divine Liar, see second comment below), e.g. F = “F is N,” which creates additional problems for this approach (e.g. saying “F is N” is then to speak nonsense), so note that the atheist would additionally need to justify such an extension of the natural process of naming, to reap any benefit from such problems. (Prima facie it would be wise to analyse Liars and such naming seperately.)
......Letting ‘N’ denote (for brevity) the property of not expressing a truth, L seems to say that L is N, but hardly straightforwardly. If we let T be “L is N” then I can say that maybe L only seems to say that L is N because of its resemblance to T. Note that if L is expressing a truth—if it is not N—then L is N (paradoxically), but if T is not N then it only follows that L is N (relatively straightforwardly).
......On this (fairly popular and) Traditional Resolution, L is a special sort of nonsense (and hence not true), its apparent sense being due to its resemblance to T (which is simply true). A related paradox is therefore Moore’s. Let G be the sentence “George believes that S is certainly P, but S is not P.” G may be true, but if George utters G there is something odd about it (even with “George believes” replaced by “I believe”), and were George omniscient he could only say G by lying.
......There are many other ways to resolve the Liar (e.g. Kripke’s, e.g. see subsection 3.2 of the recent SEP entry on Self-Reference), but this is certainly one possibility. And why should we expect there to be a unique resolution? Natural linguistic entities are usually only partially (and fuzzily) defined—maybe such incompleteness facilitates their flexibility?—and Liar sentences are relatively artificial, so it may well be that different resolutions yield different (but equally legitimate) extensions of our languages.
......Atheistic uses of Divine Liars (as follows) have therefore begged the question (so far as I can see). Let ‘DL’ name the sentence “God knows that this sentence is N.” If DL is not N—if it is expressing a truth—then God (an omniscient being, here) exists, and DL is N. So DL is N. But if DL is N then God should know that DL is N, which is what DL seems to be saying; so the atheist is tempted to conclude that God does not exist.
......A theist, on the other hand, could regard DL as some evidence that such appearances are deceptive, at least when it comes to sentences like the Liar (and to a lesser extent with Moore’s paradox), and an intelligent agnostic would be unable to make much of DL in the absence of compelling reasons to regard a different way of resolving such sentences (e.g. Kripke's) as the only correct one (not just the conventional one, as that would certainly beg the philosophical question).
......Incidentally it is usual to use non-well-founded names to define Liars (as Grim defined his Divine Liar, see second comment below), e.g. F = “F is N,” which creates additional problems for this approach (e.g. saying “F is N” is then to speak nonsense), so note that the atheist would additionally need to justify such an extension of the natural process of naming, to reap any benefit from such problems. (Prima facie it would be wise to analyse Liars and such naming seperately.)
Friday, August 01, 2008
A Platonistic potential infinity?
One would naturally think that, for any time in the future (and similarly, for any point in space, any collection in a hierarchy of collections and so forth), either it is the nth day from now, for some natural number n, or it is infinitely far into the future, so that an infinite future might be divided into the finitely and the infinitely remote, the former region being infinitely many (i.e. aleph-null) days long since otherwise there would be no nth day for some n. But maybe it is not the case that, for any time in the future, it is either the nth day (for some n) or not.
......If it was an nth day, for some n, it would be so objectively; but maybe that property, of being an nth day for some n, is sufficiently like an indefinite property (as a consequence of the endlessness of the natural number sequence, not because of anything fuzzy about units, additions or repetitions, nor because of anything specifically temporal) for it not to follow that an arbitrary future time would either be an nth day (for some n) or not. (Such a possibility is indicated by how the natural assumption, of aleph-null, leaves us with a proper class of such cardinal numbers.)
......If it was an nth day, for some n, it would be so objectively; but maybe that property, of being an nth day for some n, is sufficiently like an indefinite property (as a consequence of the endlessness of the natural number sequence, not because of anything fuzzy about units, additions or repetitions, nor because of anything specifically temporal) for it not to follow that an arbitrary future time would either be an nth day (for some n) or not. (Such a possibility is indicated by how the natural assumption, of aleph-null, leaves us with a proper class of such cardinal numbers.)
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Presuming Personhood
Watching WALL-E, the best thing at the cinema this summer (and a decent argument against slavish adherence to 700-year-old authority), I suddenly noticed how the humans in it (who resembled jelly-beans) were just cartoons.
......It had been easy to see the cartoon robots as robots to begin with, and as WALL-E clowned around he was touching, e.g. when watching a video of realistic humans, and imitating them. But when the cartoon captain saw the same video I suddenly noticed how he was less than the blob he was in the film (which at that point in the film, he was transcending) and was an ‘it,’ was just lines and colours; and so I became involuntarily aware that I was just watching cartoons (fortunately only fleetingly aware). That dissociation being quasi-trippy, I winded up recalling how we naturally presume that something is a fellow person, when we are young.
......When we grow up, we may think of that as naive, as wrong; but is it? It is not that we ever apply positive criteria for personhood; we rather learn when things fail to be people. Inanimate things fail by being unconscious, and some animals may fail by being amoral, for example. The problem is that if we could know enough about the mechanical or random sources of anyone’s behaviour, we would stop thinking of that one as a person (fortunately we would blink, and involuntarily represume personhood, whatever we knew).
......I’m left wondering if we should define ‘person’ so, what do you think? If atheism is true, we would (probably) have evolved some vague and fluid criteria for personhood, and if theism then the fundamental entity is (probably) a perfect person, and personhood an objectively indefinable primitive (for us).
......It had been easy to see the cartoon robots as robots to begin with, and as WALL-E clowned around he was touching, e.g. when watching a video of realistic humans, and imitating them. But when the cartoon captain saw the same video I suddenly noticed how he was less than the blob he was in the film (which at that point in the film, he was transcending) and was an ‘it,’ was just lines and colours; and so I became involuntarily aware that I was just watching cartoons (fortunately only fleetingly aware). That dissociation being quasi-trippy, I winded up recalling how we naturally presume that something is a fellow person, when we are young.
......When we grow up, we may think of that as naive, as wrong; but is it? It is not that we ever apply positive criteria for personhood; we rather learn when things fail to be people. Inanimate things fail by being unconscious, and some animals may fail by being amoral, for example. The problem is that if we could know enough about the mechanical or random sources of anyone’s behaviour, we would stop thinking of that one as a person (fortunately we would blink, and involuntarily represume personhood, whatever we knew).
......I’m left wondering if we should define ‘person’ so, what do you think? If atheism is true, we would (probably) have evolved some vague and fluid criteria for personhood, and if theism then the fundamental entity is (probably) a perfect person, and personhood an objectively indefinable primitive (for us).
Sunday, July 27, 2008
74th Philosophers' Carnival
......Most people would find the following obscure and boring. Fortunately most people won't be reading it :-) so, for all you philosophers out there, here it is (a day early):-
......Philosophers' Carnival
......Language
a) David asks Does Truth Exist? and simply shows its necessary existence, as Mr. Contrarian.
b) Peter presents Parsons's Mathematical Thought: Sec 13, Nominalism and second-order logic, part of an interesting (if one likes mathematics) review of Charles Parsons's 2008 "Mathematical Thought and Its Objects" at Logic Matters.
c) Justin presents Experimental Work on Machery et al.'s "Semantics, Cross-cultural Style" , which undermines the conclusions of that previous investigation into the intuitions behind Kripke's Gödel case (from "Naming and Necessity"), at My Mind is Made Up.
d) Gualtiero, in Ramsey Reconsiders Representation, reviews William Ramsey's 2007 "Representation Reconsidered" at Brains.
e) Richard's Open Access Action is a petition (nominated by Terrance) to open-up a Journal (Philosophical Studies), posted at Philosophy, et cetera.
......Knowledge
(i) Ryan's Quantum Immortality shows us accessibly why Everett's interpretation of physics is hopeless. If you love that, you'll like chaospet.
(ii) Ed describes how Social spiders do better when hunting with relatives, which was posted at the accessible and interesting Not Exactly Rocket Science.
(iii) Manoj presents Perception, Physics and the Role of Light in Philosophy, the blog version of an article published in "The Philosopher," and now at Unreal Blog.
(iv) Noumena's Reconceptualizing Underrepresentation (nominated by Rachel) responds thoughtfully to Tierney's infamous article of July 15 NYT (on Title IX and Science), and is at The Headpiece for the Staff of Ra.
(v) Phillip presents some Problems with Transhumanism, e.g. "that technologies are, as a rule, more problem-engendering than problem-solving." More such equals The Coriolis Effect.
......The Will
1. Alrenous presents Concept Cagematch: Zombies vs Consciousness. Maybe we act on such nonphysical information as would be unavailable to Zombies, but this post concentrates accessibly on what consciousness is not. Posted at Accepting Ignorance.
2. Avery presents Why-Questions and Motive-Explanations, being a start on a theory of action: "an action counts as intentional if and only if it possible to give a correct belief-desire or motive-explanation of that action." Posted at The Space of Reasons.
3. Jared contrasts Reasons vs. Conditions, in what is perhaps about how reasonable reasons can transcend reason, but which may certainly be found at Sportive Thoughts.
4. Larry (aka larryniven) presents Wordplay, discovering equivocation in one of Dennett's arguments against the incompatibility of free will and determinism. Posted (a while ago) at Rust Belt Philosophy.
5. Michael presents Homosexuality, Choice and Dreaded Dark Overlords, being a short look at free will from the perspective of sexual orientation, posted at a Nadder!
......The Good
p = Matt presents Ethics of Manners. He argues that "the practice of good manners is unethical." Posted at A Mind for Madness.
q = Thom asks Should we elect all members of the House of Lords? They "can have the long-term interests of the country in mind, rather than newspaper headlines or general elections" so no, argues The Brooks Blog.
r = David presents "We study ethics to become good" Is this true anywhere today? But when would the good choose the freedom to be good, over their democratic responsibilities? The former (for USA) is preferred by The Picket Line.
s = Paul presents some Moral Commitment Problems, in which game theory seems to favour Kantian ethics, and which was posted at Uncommon Priors.
t = Ashok presents Towards a Nietzschean Understanding of Politics: Notes on "The Case of Wagner" (Part 1) "Socrates laughs, Jesus weeps." Posted at Rethink.
......And that's that...
......The 75th Carnival will follow in a fortnight at Wide Scope so if you are unimpressed with the above (or even if not) you should submit something to that. And why not host one yourself? That way you can have everything how you like it (-:
......Philosophers' Carnival
......Language
a) David asks Does Truth Exist? and simply shows its necessary existence, as Mr. Contrarian.
b) Peter presents Parsons's Mathematical Thought: Sec 13, Nominalism and second-order logic, part of an interesting (if one likes mathematics) review of Charles Parsons's 2008 "Mathematical Thought and Its Objects" at Logic Matters.
c) Justin presents Experimental Work on Machery et al.'s "Semantics, Cross-cultural Style" , which undermines the conclusions of that previous investigation into the intuitions behind Kripke's Gödel case (from "Naming and Necessity"), at My Mind is Made Up.
d) Gualtiero, in Ramsey Reconsiders Representation, reviews William Ramsey's 2007 "Representation Reconsidered" at Brains.
e) Richard's Open Access Action is a petition (nominated by Terrance) to open-up a Journal (Philosophical Studies), posted at Philosophy, et cetera.
......Knowledge
(i) Ryan's Quantum Immortality shows us accessibly why Everett's interpretation of physics is hopeless. If you love that, you'll like chaospet.
(ii) Ed describes how Social spiders do better when hunting with relatives, which was posted at the accessible and interesting Not Exactly Rocket Science.
(iii) Manoj presents Perception, Physics and the Role of Light in Philosophy, the blog version of an article published in "The Philosopher," and now at Unreal Blog.
(iv) Noumena's Reconceptualizing Underrepresentation (nominated by Rachel) responds thoughtfully to Tierney's infamous article of July 15 NYT (on Title IX and Science), and is at The Headpiece for the Staff of Ra.
(v) Phillip presents some Problems with Transhumanism, e.g. "that technologies are, as a rule, more problem-engendering than problem-solving." More such equals The Coriolis Effect.
......The Will
1. Alrenous presents Concept Cagematch: Zombies vs Consciousness. Maybe we act on such nonphysical information as would be unavailable to Zombies, but this post concentrates accessibly on what consciousness is not. Posted at Accepting Ignorance.
2. Avery presents Why-Questions and Motive-Explanations, being a start on a theory of action: "an action counts as intentional if and only if it possible to give a correct belief-desire or motive-explanation of that action." Posted at The Space of Reasons.
3. Jared contrasts Reasons vs. Conditions, in what is perhaps about how reasonable reasons can transcend reason, but which may certainly be found at Sportive Thoughts.
4. Larry (aka larryniven) presents Wordplay, discovering equivocation in one of Dennett's arguments against the incompatibility of free will and determinism. Posted (a while ago) at Rust Belt Philosophy.
5. Michael presents Homosexuality, Choice and Dreaded Dark Overlords, being a short look at free will from the perspective of sexual orientation, posted at a Nadder!
......The Good
p = Matt presents Ethics of Manners. He argues that "the practice of good manners is unethical." Posted at A Mind for Madness.
q = Thom asks Should we elect all members of the House of Lords? They "can have the long-term interests of the country in mind, rather than newspaper headlines or general elections" so no, argues The Brooks Blog.
r = David presents "We study ethics to become good" Is this true anywhere today? But when would the good choose the freedom to be good, over their democratic responsibilities? The former (for USA) is preferred by The Picket Line.
s = Paul presents some Moral Commitment Problems, in which game theory seems to favour Kantian ethics, and which was posted at Uncommon Priors.
t = Ashok presents Towards a Nietzschean Understanding of Politics: Notes on "The Case of Wagner" (Part 1) "Socrates laughs, Jesus weeps." Posted at Rethink.
......And that's that...
......The 75th Carnival will follow in a fortnight at Wide Scope so if you are unimpressed with the above (or even if not) you should submit something to that. And why not host one yourself? That way you can have everything how you like it (-:
Friday, July 18, 2008
Sussuration Song
.......Will shining shingle sing of God?
.............Dark incarnate hearts
pump hard, as rooks heave at dusk,
.............wing-beats glistening.
.......Clouds that shroud heaven
.......hang over shadowless dusk,
..............starkly reddening.
..............Robin’s orange bust
..............bobs a little rustily
..............in a sudden gust.
Robin Redbreast drops dead, poor thing, for
it’s night, and the slimy shingle stinks of cod.
..............“In your sight all is light
..............for ignitable spite,
for recursive respites see your fighters rehearse,
as your terse universe irreversibly worsens,,
.............Rudely tulips bloom,
petals plumped round jumbling genes,
bumped by bumbling bees. Two twirling butterflies
climb a double helix. I’m a double helix
.......whose whirling wonder dies. Sparks
...............swirling upwards flash
.......into ash-flakes (“Your words dye into
paper,,) as wounding winds use weaving waves
........to bury bones in gruesome graves:
................Robin’s flotsam grotto.
................To deliberate is to delete options.
........................On other shores the sea snores
........................as the waves break, saying
......................................................“je suis... Je suis...,,
Ruddy flesh haloed,
but pebble-strewn puddle owns,
................muddy cherry stones
........and so there will be cherry blossom
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Call for Posts: PC74
Posts relating to philosophy are wanted for the 74th Philosophers' Carnival, which will be here. Submit anything by anyone, if it strikes you as interesting and accessible. If you're blogging philosophically, sign up to Host a carnival, and if not then start a philosophy Blog.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Aberdeen
Many thanks to all the people who made the Joint Sessions in Aberdeen very pleasant, especially Jonny:
I saw a mysterious looking man called Martin Cooke from Glasgow present a paper on a physically possible supertask that he thought proved that propensity theories were contradictory, or physical tendencies were, if there is a difference. There were a lot of structural similarities with the 2 envelope paradox, so I went over and started talking to him at lunch. We talked for quite along time before we realised that he had actually commented on Blogginthequestion! Under the pseudonym Enigman! “So you are Enigman!” I declared and shook him firmly by the hand.My talk went well enough (e.g. I didn't faint), although I was booed when I replied to a question about what I was proving by saying that my proof could be regarded as a proof that the counting numbers are indefinitely extensible, if we assume that physical tendencies are well-described by some propensity theory or other! The talks I sat through were more academic, as were the plenary speakers. The best bits were Kit Fine likening David Lewis to Thales (Lewis said that to question set theory would be silly, but his basic supposition was that there are no Laws of Nature) and a discussion on the nature of time (following an argument against presentism that was illustrated by a drawing, so that in effect, the force of the argument presupposed that time was quasi-spatial, imho; the man making the argument replied that presentism was crazy).
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Sunday, July 06, 2008
Where have you been?
Said the straight man, to the late man,That's how "I Talk To The Wind" begins, 1968
Where have you been?
I've been here, and I've been there,
And I've been in between.
I talk to the wind,
My words are all carried away,
I talk to the wind,
The wind does not hear,
The wind cannot hear.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
What is Logic?
It seems to me that what we mean, when we say that some reasoning is logical, is that it is the kind of reasoning that would always, if we started with nothing but some truths, take us to nothing but truths. It is, for example, logical for me to deduce that you are a human from the (presumed) truth that everyone reading this is human, because if all the objects of a certain kind have a certain property, then any particular object of that kind will have that property. Why is that the case? Well, it just seems to be self-evident. I suppose that I could show the self-evidence by drawing a lot of red dots: given those dots, each of them is, of course, red (and each of them is a dot). Such reasoning is self-evident because it gives us just some of what we already had. Now, it seems to me that first-order logic is a mathematical model of such logical reasoning, which is about things (subjects) and their properties (predicates). In short, I take predicate logic to be linguistic, and first-order logic to be mathematical. But I am beginning to wonder if I have got this all wrong, because I found the following description of predicate logic on a paper in a book in the library:
Predicate logic (first-order logic) is a formal system that extends propositional logic by breaking sentences down into subjects, predicates (properties), and quantifiers. It enables precise reasoning about objects by defining properties and relationships, allowing for statements like "all dogs are blue", which propositional logic cannot express.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Travels = Travails
I'm Back in England for the Summer (except for Aberdeen next month) but all I'm doing is rewriting my response to Mawson and having deep thoughts... News Flash: I'll be hosting the best Carnival in the world wide web next month too (it needs doing hint hint and it's fun to play god :)
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Is there a question?
Is it the job of analytic metaphysicians, to put back the pictures that the axiomatic mathematicians remove from our scientific descriptions of reality; and if not, why not?
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Stuff (and this and that)
Kripke (Naming and Necessity) described how "water" means H2O because people once indicated the liquid form of H2O and said something like "that stuff," so that (via a causal chain) we now mean by "water" what they meant by it. But if so, then had some weird spacetime wormhole (or something) substituted that bit of water for XYZ briefly, just before they said "that stuff," then we would have been misusing "water" ever since (and obviously we have not, whereas it's not so obvious that such a substitution could not have been).
......Furthermore their folk metaphysics may not have been much like ours, way back then (instead of our chemistry, something like alchemy maybe), so why would "that stuff" have meant H2O then? Indeed, what stops us referring, with our "water," to H2O in any of its fluid phases (the liquid phase is largely H+ and OH- ions anyway), or to any similar mixture of hydrogen and oxygen (similarly) or of nucleons and electrons, or to just the oxygen or just the nucleons, or (conversely) to impurities in the water as well as the H2O (as we may well do ordinarily), and so on?
......Presumably we all presume some (similar) folky metaphysics, so that our "that"s are intimately (if subconsciously) associated with something like a description (if an indescribable one) in our heads. Furthermore, once we've separated out such descriptivistic content, there might not be anything externalistic left over.
......Even if the reference of "water" is fixed from day to day, by our thinking "that stuff" while thinking of some actual water, the substance underlying H2O might be a different one on different days (e.g. as subatomic strings randomly pointed in different directions, or something), and we would not then mean, by "water," different substances on different days. If the underlying variation made no observable difference, it would be like there was (as presumably there is) no variation; the stuff referred to would be the constant chemical (defined by its chemical description, and hence via the meaning of "chemical"). And if it did make a difference then descriptivistic content would again determine which stuff we were referring to (cf. normal versus heavy water).
......Furthermore, while there may seem to be an externalistic element with the "that" of "that stuff," there would surely be (after all the descriptivisitic stuff) an internalistic "this," because only a reference to this Actuality (containing both that stuff and us) would be able to lack descriptivistic content.
......There is therefore (for a frivolous consequence) surprisingly little incoherence between Biblical literalism and modern science; e.g. when originally creating water (not just below but also above the starry firmament) God would have had some description (some range of relational roles or whatever) in mind, but such details as the underlying substances (e.g. the particles that comprise the H and the O nowadays) might quite naturally have varied as the more crucial (e.g. moral and psychological) matters were settled.
......Furthermore their folk metaphysics may not have been much like ours, way back then (instead of our chemistry, something like alchemy maybe), so why would "that stuff" have meant H2O then? Indeed, what stops us referring, with our "water," to H2O in any of its fluid phases (the liquid phase is largely H+ and OH- ions anyway), or to any similar mixture of hydrogen and oxygen (similarly) or of nucleons and electrons, or to just the oxygen or just the nucleons, or (conversely) to impurities in the water as well as the H2O (as we may well do ordinarily), and so on?
......Presumably we all presume some (similar) folky metaphysics, so that our "that"s are intimately (if subconsciously) associated with something like a description (if an indescribable one) in our heads. Furthermore, once we've separated out such descriptivistic content, there might not be anything externalistic left over.
......Even if the reference of "water" is fixed from day to day, by our thinking "that stuff" while thinking of some actual water, the substance underlying H2O might be a different one on different days (e.g. as subatomic strings randomly pointed in different directions, or something), and we would not then mean, by "water," different substances on different days. If the underlying variation made no observable difference, it would be like there was (as presumably there is) no variation; the stuff referred to would be the constant chemical (defined by its chemical description, and hence via the meaning of "chemical"). And if it did make a difference then descriptivistic content would again determine which stuff we were referring to (cf. normal versus heavy water).
......Furthermore, while there may seem to be an externalistic element with the "that" of "that stuff," there would surely be (after all the descriptivisitic stuff) an internalistic "this," because only a reference to this Actuality (containing both that stuff and us) would be able to lack descriptivistic content.
......There is therefore (for a frivolous consequence) surprisingly little incoherence between Biblical literalism and modern science; e.g. when originally creating water (not just below but also above the starry firmament) God would have had some description (some range of relational roles or whatever) in mind, but such details as the underlying substances (e.g. the particles that comprise the H and the O nowadays) might quite naturally have varied as the more crucial (e.g. moral and psychological) matters were settled.
Sunday, June 01, 2008
Form is the diagram of forces
Dark incarnate hearts
pump hard as rooks heave at dusk,
wing-beats glistening.
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