"andy-k" wrote in
news:ySHik.25957$8_2.18538@newsfe08.ams2:
>> (All of the CR is a hypothesis regarding the workings of the UR. But
>> we can't validate that hypothesis, or any element of it, by comparing
>> it to the UR. We can only validate it by seeing how well it predicts
>> phenomena within the ER. To the extent to succeeds at this, we accept
>> it as a stand-in for the unknowable UR.)
> You seem to be saying that the UR is a product of the CR, but
> according to the CR the CR is a product of the UR, in which case we
> still have a chicken-and-egg scenario.
No. As I said earlier, the UR is not a component of CR. It is an *a priori*
posit which invites and enables construction of a CR (a causal explanation
of the ER). That posit allows us to escape solipsism and supplies the CR
with a metaphysical foundation. The posit asserts, "Something X exists
which is the cause of my existence and experience." That X is the UR. We
know and may say nothing more about it than what is asserted in that posit.
>> Where, or in what sense, have we abstracted or abducted the strong
>> force or the K shell (a spherical probability distribution of charge)
>> from observed data? Many of the properties imputed to atoms are not
>> even visualizable, much less observable.
>
> Experimental results demonstrate that the nucleus is tiny compared to
> the size of the atom and that the nucleus consists of positively
> charged protons and electrically neutral neutrons (Rutherford,
> Chadwick). The problem was then to explain how the nuclei of atoms
> heavier than hydrogen manage to overcome the electrical forces that
> should be making them unstable. The idea of the strong force was
> abducted in order to account for the enigmatic stability of such
> nuclei.
Abducted from where? It was invented *ad hoc* to resolve a quandry in the
structure then being hypothesized for the atom. And the experimental
results you mention were not observations of any atoms. They were "readings
on dials."
We don't observe atoms, Andy. We observe readings on dials. Atoms are
constructs we have dreamed up to account for those readings. (Pretty good
constructs, too).
>> We know nothing of the UR. And since we have no way of finding our
>> anything about it, we make no claims about it. The unknowability of
>> the UR does not give us a license to say anything we wish about it,
>> since any such statements would be noncognitive, and thus pointless.
>> Instead, it obliges us to keep silent about it.
> But you haven't kept silent about it -- you claim it to be the cause
> of that which we experience. If you were to truly keep silent about it
> then you wouldn't even postulate its existence. As you say above, "We
> know nothing of the UR. And since we have no way of finding out
> anything about it, we make no claims about it" -- i.e. not even that
> it exists.
See above.
Two choices are open to the solipsist:
1. Either nothing exists except the solipsist and his experiences (which
distinction he will have to have made in order to be posing the question),
leaving himself and his experiences without cause, or
2. Something not within his experience exists which is the cause of himself
and his experiences.
He opts for #2 because it promises to be more fun. Thus he posits a UR
(which he can know nothing more about because, by hypothesis, it is not
within his experience), and then sets about to construct a CR.
>> Knowing something about *matter* is another story, however. Matter
>> (substance often detectable by the senses and hypothesized to consist
>> of atoms) is a construct within the CR. If some of these
>> sense-detectable substances at some point manifest new tangible
>> properties or behaviors (phenomena within the ER), then we may be
>> justified in imputing new properties to the atoms we postulate to
>> explain it.
> And since there are no testable hypotheses concerning the origin of
> the subjective perspective upon the world, we are not at liberty to
> impute the absence of such a perspective to atoms.
Of course there are testable hypotheses. If we are able to construct a
system which has a subjective perspective upon the world, according to the
criteria we routinely apply to distinguish between paradigm things which
have and do not have such a perspective, then we have a testable
hypothesis: systems with certain types of structures, and only systems of
those types, will have a subjective perpective upon the world. We will have
specified the necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of a
subjective perspective on the world. If we can also supply a plausible
account for how systems with structures of that type could have been
constructed naturally, and show that we ourselves are systems of that type,
then we'll have an account for the existence of our own subjective
perspective on the world.
The "subjective perspective upon a world" referred to here is, of course,
the sense of that expression we earlier denoted as "#1" --- the property we
commonly impute to ourselves, other awake persons, many animals, etc., but
not to dead persons, bricks, shovels, baseballs, etc.
Regarding imputations to atoms, we are at liberty to impute or decline to
impute any properties we wish to them, as they are our own constructs. But
since we have invented them to explain various phenomena we experience, we
decline to impute properties to them which do not explain anything, or
which are unnecessary for explaining something.
(This of course gets us back to what counts as an explanation. More below).
>>> 1. the evidence was available to be discovered prior to its
>>> discovery 2. the evidence is something we invent
>>> 3. the evidence is created by the cosmos as we discover it
>>> 4. there's something I've overlooked (please specify)
>> We assume #1. That is because we take the CR to be an enduring entity
>> underlying the transitory phenomena of the ER. But, of course, since
>> those transitory data are the only data we have, we have no way of
>> knowing in a metaphysical sense whether that is the case. If at some
>> point we feel justified in imputing a new property to atoms, we'll
>> take the atoms to have had that property all along, just as we took
>> them to have electrons all along, after the advent of the Bohr atom.
>> But we didn't impute electrons to them until some explantatory
>> yardage --- better predictability of known ER phenomena, or
>> predictability of newly-encountered ER phenomena --- could be gained
>> by doing so.
>
> Sounds like you're undecided whether to promote 1 or 3.
> By what criteria would you make that decision?
#1, because it is simpler (if the cosmos is --- apparently --- generating
phenomena at random, then we'll demand some mechanism to account for that
behavior).
>> Well, that is an unconventional use of that term. "Convergence" is
>> generally understood to be a type of dynamic relation between two (or
>> more) things, e.g., two points moving closer together.
Those references support my comments on "convergence:" "knowledge may be
characterized by convergence to a correct hypothesis in the limit of
empirical scientific inquiry;" "scientific theories in their historical
order of appearance contribute to the convergence to an ultimate ideal
theory."
Actual hypotheses converge to a "correct hypothesis" or to an "ideal
theory" (two things). We have no "correct hypothesis" or "ideal theory"
with which to compare any actual hypothesis, and thus no means of
determining whether a given actual theory is "correct" or "ideal." An
hypothesis or theory is "correct" as long as it accounts satisfactorily for
the data available at the moment, and no simpler theory with equal
explanatory power is available.
(Naturally, if you are a metaphysical realist you'll have a radically
different view).
>> But the understanding of "explanation" you described has no power. It
>> was that an explanation of a phenomenon consisted in placing that
>> phenomenon into a consistent, coherent larger picture. But that
>> larger picture has no power unless it yields new knowledge --- leads
>> us to new phenomena within the ER, or at least allows us to predict
>> more known phenomena, or predict them more economically (it can haul
>> the same or a larger load with a smaller engine).
> An explanation is a proposed solution to an enigma,
> whether or not it admits of testable predictions.
This seems to be the central point of contention between us. You need some
means of selecting an actual solution from among the numerous solution-
candidates (EFs) which may be proposed. If none of the solutions proposed
have testable consequences, then how do you choose among them? In what
sense are any of them "solutions?" What problems (or enigmas) do they
solve? In what sense do they solve them?
As Huck Finn and his companion Jim are lying on their raft one night,
stargazing, Jim suggests that the stars are eggs laid by the Moon, and that
shooting stars are spoiled eggs the Moon has cast from the nest. Huck
replies that there are an awful lot of eggs to be laid by one Moon, but he
remembers seeing eggs in catfish he's caught, and there are a lot of them,
too. So he ends up accepting Jim's cosmological theory. Why don't we accept
it?
Consider 4 dots arranged in a square, and you wish to draw lines connecting
them to form a figure (ala a connect-the-dots puzzle). There are numerous
ways to connect those 4 dots --- a square, a circle, a 4-pointed star,
infinitely many other possible shapes. Which of those possibilities is the
"solution" to the puzzle? Or are all of them solutions? If there is no way
to decide among them, what value do any of them have?
My answer is that we select as the solution the figure that predicts future
dots. If it is a circle, we will find future dots in certain places; if it
is a star we'll find them in different places. If we posit in advance that
no more dots will be discovered, then the entire figure-drawing exercise is
a waste of time, unless we merely have an aesthetic preference for certain
shapes over others.
I'd really like to understand what you find attractive about a theory, a
"bigger picture," which does not imply features not visible at the moment,
and thus is not predictive of future experience.
>> They come about when a system which can model itself and its
>> environment differentiates between the states of the model using 1
>> bit. Those will be states the system can distinguish, but which it
>> cannot analyze (because there is only 1 bit of information
>> distinguishing them. There is not enough data to permit any further
>> analysis or description). The difference between those two states
>> will be inherently subjective --- the system can distinguish them,
>> but not describe them. The system will report that State 1 is "like
>> something" and that State 2 is "like something else." That will be
>> all it can say.
>> (You can't describe the difference between 1 and 2 either, without
>> begging the question. Try it.) (Try to imagine describing the
>> difference between 1 and 2 to someone who has never experienced that
>> difference, ala Mary the Color Scientist).
> You're answering the question: "How (in principle) do undescribable
> states come about?". Subjective states are not only undescribable but
> also *experiential*, so how would you support your implied claim that
> undescribable states are necessarily *experiential*?
Well, you have to get the modifier "subjective" in there. Even "zombies"
can have experiences: "I skydived today. It was quite an experience!" It
will have a subjective experience if it experiences an internal state which
it can report but not describe (thereby making it impossible for others to
know what that state "is like" for the system which experiences it). That's
why we will call that state "subjective." It will experience such states
if it is the type of system which can generate them.
>> That seems to be equivalent to (1) above. That is the version we can
>> answer (in principle). See just above.
>
> The enigma I'm talking about the mechanism by which the subjective
> perspective comes into existence.
But that is what the theory does. It sets forth the necessary and
sufficient conditions for bringing such subjective perspectives into
existence.
>> Why are the invisible demons irrational? What makes that hypothesis
>> irrational?
>
> It's irrational because it's a non-explanation in the example you
> cite.
I agree, of course, but I also claim that protoconscious atoms is a non-
explanation of the same ilk. What do you see as the differences between the
two theories?
> There are no proffered solutions that admit of predictions and
> testability regarding the mechanism by which consciousness comes into
> existence, so would you summarily dismiss all proffered solutions in
> this case?
If we could build a machine ala HAL9000, or ala the androids of
*Bladerunner,* would we not have demonstrated such a mechanism? Wouldn't
the properties of such devices be predictable and testable?
>> You're reversing the order of events here! We don't decide
>> arbitrarily to reject the hypothesis, thereby excluding any possible
>> "mores" *a priori*. We reject it *a posteriori*, because possible
>> "mores" had already been excluded by definition.
> That's not the case -- you rejected it because *testable* 'mores' had
> already been excluded by definition. If you're now saying that you're
> prepared to accept untestable 'mores' then there is common ground
> upon which further debate might proceed.
And we are back to what counts as an explanation. I would be happy to
entertain EF's which are in principle untestable, if you can suggest some
reason for doing so
--- some ground for selecting among such EFs, or for
taking them any more seriously as explanations than God theory or Jim's
cosmology.
This seems to be where we need to focus.
