"andy-k" wrote in
news:wSink.139496$8w4.18648@newsfe30.ams2:
> I don't consider the CR to be a "stand-in" for the UR at all. The CR
> is that domain of the subjective perspective upon a world that
> encompasses explanations for the categories of order manifest in the
> ER (and also, in the case of psychology, for the categories of order
> manifest in the CR). Furthermore, the process of model-building in the
> CR may also extend to encompassing one or more hypotheses attempting
> to address the question of the very existence of the entire ER+CR
> domain (in postulating what we have been calling the UR). What enables
> us to better anticipate and manipulate the antics of the world is the
> set of models in the CR, not any knowledge of the UR, so the success
> of those models adds nothing to the credibility of the posit of a UR.
You appear to be assuming that the credibility of the posit (of a UR)
depends upon acquiring knowledge of the properties of that which is
posited. It doesn't. In fact, since the posit makes no statements about
any properties of the entity posited, any statements predicating any
properties to it will have no bearing whatsoever on the posit's
credibility. The posit becomes more credible if *what it asserts*
becomes more probable. The posit merely asserts, "Something exists
external to the ER, which is the cause of the ER." Any statements
imputing any properties to it will be irrelevant to the plausibility of
that posit.
The models of the CR *presume* the UR. Every CR model which postulates
an external --- atoms, quarks, waves and fields, etc. --- entails the
UR, e.g., "Atoms exist external to the ER" entails, "something exists
external to the ER." This is a strict logical entailment. Thus if some
empirical evidence renders "Atoms exist external to the ER" more
probable or plausible, then that same evidence renders the UR more
probable or plausible, to precisely the same degree.
All possible CRs are instantiations of the UR, as long as they postulate
externals which have a causative role in the ER, regardless of what else
they may also posit, and regardless of the causative mechanisms posited.
They are all possible URs. We adopt as a "stand-in" for the UR that CR
which, among all the CRs known to us, best accounts for the ER phenomena
we observe (because that is the role posited for the UR).
> The postulate of the UR does no work for us whatsoever -- not in the
> sense that the models postulated in the CR "do work" for us. The only
> grounding for the postulate of the existence of a UR is the
> identification of the entire ER+CR with a certain conceptual object
> arising in the CR, namely an organism that is conceived to be hosting
> this ER+CR. That conceived organism is not alone in the experienced
> world, and so the concomitant belief arises that, just as there is
> more to the world than the physical organism that is this 'me', so
> there is more to 'existence' than the entire domain of the ER+CR.
Nope. The "grounding" of the UR (and that is not the most apt term) has
nothing to do with being alone in the world, or an inchoate belief that
"there must be something more." The UR is posited because a being which
has come to differentiate between itself and the "other" which it also
perceives, and is inquisitive, can find no cause for either itself or
the "other" among its own percepts (i.e., within the ER). So it must
choose between positing the existence of something external to itself
and the ER (I'd like to just collapse that dichotomy into the ER, if it
will not cause confusion), or accepting that the ER has no cause. The
latter choice would be for solipsism (nothing exists except the ER).
(It could also here propose that something exists beyond the ER, but has
no causal role in the ER. I'd suggest it would not find that possibility
very interesting, since there is no apparent way to pursue it
productively, and thus it could not assuage its curiosity regarding its
own existence).
Solipsism asserts, "Nothing exists beyond the ER." The contradictory of
that negative universal is, "Something exists beyond the ER." The latter
proposition is the *minimum alternative* to solipsism. We *prefer* the
existential to the universal, because the existential ("Something exists
beyond the ER") opens the possibility of finding a cause for the ER. So
we posit the UR: "Something exists beyond the ER which is its cause."
We now have a *minimum metaphysic* which enables us to explore possible
causal mechanisms for our own existence and the other phenomena we
encounter within the ER.
>>> You'll need to present an argument regarding any affirmation of the
>>> UR.
>>
>> Easy enough.
>>
>> 1. Something X exists external to the ER. (Posit).
>>
>> 2. Atoms exist external to the ER (hypothesis, instantiation of 1).
>>
>> 3. If atoms exist, the such-and-such will be observed in the ER
>> (definition/theory of atoms).
>>
>> 4. Such-and-such is observed within the ER. (empirical observation).
>>
>> 5. The existence of atoms is now more probable (induction from 3 and
>> 4).
>>
>> 6. 1 is also now more probable, because one of its possible instances
>> is more probable.
>>
>> But neither 1 nor 2 are ever "proved."
>
> The atom is an idea postulated in the CR in order to account for
> certain observations in the ER, and this postulate carries no
> necessary implication that atoms exist "external to" the ER+CR.
Oh, but it does. Atoms *necessarily* exist external to the ER, if they
exist at all, because they are not experienced, i.e., not encountered
within the ER. *We are postulating the existence of something we do not
perceive within the ER*. Hence it is necessarily external to the ER (if
it exists at all).
Again, don't confuse the posit itself (that atoms exist), or the "idea"
or concept of atoms, with the atom --- that which is posited to exist.
The posit, the "idea" and the concept are all elements within the ER.
But the atom is not. "The atom is an idea postulated in the CR" is
*false*. The atom is that which the idea is *of*. Atoms cause chemical
reactions, not the "idea" or concept of atoms. Similarly, what is
posited is the atom, an entity existing outside the ER, not the "idea of
an atom."
I'm suspecting that this identification of an idea with its object is a
major culprit in our seeming inability to find common ground here. I'm
wondering if you appreciate the consequences of that identification.
Consider the posit:
P1.: Something exists external to the ER, the atom, which has such-and-
such properties and which causes so-and-so phenomena within the ER.
You wish to claim: "P1 is nothing but a posit within the ER."
The consequence of that stance, if you take it consistently for all Ps,
and were it to imply what you think it does, is that nothing exists
external to the ER --- which returns you to solipsism.
But it doesn't imply what you think it does, namely, that because P1 is
"nothing but a posit within the ER," that what it posits is *also*
"nothing but a posit within the ER." That faulty implication explicitly
contradicts what the posit explicitly states. By drawing it you are
simply denying what the posit states, without grounds, and in the
process retreating to solipsism.
> Hypothesized entities *may* correspond to something external to the
> ER, but it does not follow that they *must* correspond to something
> external to the ER. Their existence as ideas residing in the CR is
> quite a different issue to the proposition that "they are external to
> the ER".
Entities hypothesized to exist external to the ER *do* exist external to
the ER, by hypothesis (if they exist at all). They are not hypothesized
to "correspond" to anything else presumed to exist external to the ER.
But you're right that "Their existence as ideas residing in the CR is
quite a different issue to the proposition that 'they are external to
the ER'". And it is the latter, not the former, which is hypothesized.
That atoms exist as "ideas within the ER" is an experiential fact about
the ER; that is not an hypothesis. The hypothesis is that atoms exist
external to the ER. That is the hypothesis we wish to test, by
investigating the consequences within the ER which the hypothesis
predicts.
>> Do not confuse the hypothesis with the thing hypothesized here. The
>> hypothesis resides firmly within the ER. But that which is
>> hypothesized, e.g., the atom, does not --- by hypothesis, of course.
>> *We are hypothesizing the existence of something we do not
>> experience.*, i.e., something external to the ER (the ER being all of
>> that which we experience).
>
> Hypothesized entities may have no existence at all except as ideas
> residing in the CR. We may indulge in the further proposition that the
> hypothesized entities exist external to the ER+CR, but this
> proposition has no bearing whatsoever on how science is conducted --
> i.e. it does no *work* for us in the manner that successful models in
> the CR do.
There is no "further proposition." The entities are external to the ER
*as hypothesized*, and necessarily so, because they are not experienced
within the ER. Only the ideas of them are experienced, and thus within
the ER. But ideas do not have atomic weights, charge, mass, etc.
You are right, of course, that hypothesized entities may not exist. That
is why we test the hypothesis. Successful tests render the existence of
the hypothesized entity more probable; unsuccessful tests render it less
probable.
>> No more metaphysical speculation is required to explain the existence
>> of the ER within a bigger picture than for explaining hurricanes. The
>> only metaphysical posit we need in either case is the posit of a UR
>> --- that something exists beyond the ER, which causes ER phenomena.
>> Whatever is posited beyond that belongs to the CR, particularly, to
>> whatever theory we've constructed to explain that particular
>> phenomenon.
>
> The posit of the existence of a UR *is* metaphysical speculation,
> unlike the posit that hurricanes arise from an interaction between
> atmospheric conditions and the ocean. The comparison is wholly
> inappropriate.
The posit, "Something exists external to the ER, which is its cause," is
indeed metaphysical speculation. The posit, "Certain (specified)
combinations of matter, external to the ER, yield ERs," is not a
metaphysical speculation, but a theoretical one. It is testable, in the
same way that "Certain (specified) combinations of matter, external to
the ER, yield hurricanes" is testable. Both theories presume the
metaphysical UR.
>> And we certainly can explain the ER via entities which arise within
>> the ER + CR --- because *we've hypothesized them to exist outside the
>> ER + CR.*
>
> We can gain no confidence in the proposition that entities arising
> within the ER+CR have their existence outside the ER+CR, so the
> proposition is no more justifiable than that of solipsism.
Well, then I don't know what you require to gain confidence. Normally,
if an hypothesis predicts certain consequences, and those consequences
are observed, it increases confidence in the hypothesis. That's what
"confidence levels" in hypothesis testing attempt to measure.
>> We can freely speculate, postulate, theorize about existents beyond
>> ourselves, beyond the ER. No circularity is involved. What we cannot
>> do is "get outside ourselves" to verify any of those speculations or
>> theories. So instead we confirm them inductively, by observing the
>> consequences they are predicted to have within the ER.
>
> We can and do indulge in such metaphysical speculation,
> and we can and do gain confidence in our scientific models by a
> process of induction, but it is a mistake to conflate these two
> issues. Philosophy and science are different disciplines.
Speculation and hypothesizing about external existents is not
"metaphysical" if the hypotheses have testable consequences. They are
then theoretical. The bare-bones UR is the only metaphysical posit
required to do science. If further metaphysical speculation regarding
phenomena within the domain of science (the existence, content, order,
and behavior of the ER) has some other purpose, that purpose escapes me.
>> Do we indulge in these speculations for some purpose, other than
>> their entertainment value?
>
> Yes -- we indulge in them with a view to alleviating our perplexity
> regarding the appearance of the world.
Perhaps it comes down to, "What suffices to alleviate perplexity?" No
doubt the answer to that will vary widely from person to person.
>> We escape the chicken-and-egg problem by positing an external world.
>> We then have, by hypothesis, something besides the chicken and the
>> egg. We then proceed to test various hypotheses regarding the
>> workings of that external world, by seeing how well they predict
>> whether we will next see a chicken or an egg.
>
> This is the story told within the CR. There is no escape from the
> chicken-and-egg scenario as long as chicken and egg are considered
> distinct objects rather than inter-dependent conceptual divisions of a
> single process.
I'm pretty sure that conclusion is based on your identification of a
posit with the thing posited. That error construes the atom (for
example) as an "idea within the ER." Hence there is no external entity
available to supply a cause for the ER, and thus no escaping the
chicken-and-egg problem.
>> If we have explained all the particular manifestations, have we not
>> explained order *per se*? What would be left?
>
> The existence of order itself would be left, but the problem of
> accounting for the existence of order is a pseudo-problem -- the
> presence of order is not something that stands in need of an
> explanation but is the very precondition for explanations.
*An* order is a precondition. The *particular order observed* within the
ER requires explanation. And order has no existence apart from its
various manifestations; there is no "order itself." That is a Platonic
notion.
>> Think we've covered that. Merely being logically consistent does not
>> render an EF viable.
>
> In the absence of empirical evidence to the contrary, it doesn't
> render an explanation killable either.
What renders it killable is the absence of any *possibility* of evidence
for or against it, consistent though it may be.
>> A1. Those relationships can explain (meaning can describe and
>> predict) everything about consciousness which can be described, with
>> sufficient precision to allow construction of conscious systems from
>> nonconscious components (in principle). It cannot describe or predict
>> the experienced character of the subjective states such a system will
>> experience, because those will not be describable by the system
>> experiencing them (whether in our own case or in the case of a system
>> we've constructed). We can also explain why those subjective states
>> will not be describable, and predict which arrangements of components
>> will experience such indescribable states.
>
> This does not explain (meaning can find a place in a bigger picture)
> how consciousness emerges from putatively non-conscious matter.
Describing the structural and compositional requirements for systems
exhibiting consciousness does not place that phenomenon within a bigger
picture?
>> 2A. Imputing proto-consciousness (an undefined term, BTW) to the
>> nonconscious components of a conscious system does not explain the
>> consciousness exhibited by that system, unless it can explain why
>> some systems containing those proto-conscious components exhibit
>> consciousness and others do not. If the response is, "Well, they
>> exhibit consciousness if the components are arranged in a certain
>> way," then the assumption of proto-consciousness is redundant --- the
>> relationship, not the postulated property, is what is doing the
>> explaining.
> It cannot be ascertained as to whether or not an object is completely
> devoid of consciousness, so the assumption that "some systems [...]
> exhibit consciousness and others do not" begs the question.
Well, depends on what you think the question is. I take it to be the
puzzle of why some systems are conscious and others are not. If you
assume everything is conscious, then that puzzle is certainly solved, or
rather, dissolved. But the striking differences between those systems
previously considered to be conscious, and those considered not to be,
remain evident, and just as striking. We still have to account for them.
>>> None of that can be asserted of an investigation in advance of
>>> undertaking that investigation.
>>
>> You still haven't explained how such an investigation might proceed,
>> if the phenomenon to be investigated has no detectable consequences.
>
> The question is irrelevant if such an investigation is prejudicially
> rejected.
That is evasive, Andy. The claim is that an hypothesis may be dismissed
if it is not open to investigation (it is noncognitive). If you claim
that it is open to investigation, then it is up to you to outline how
that investigation may proceed, given the absence of any possible
consequences to investigate. "The burden of proof rests with he who
holds the affirmative." The answer to that question is very much
relevant to whether the hypothesis *should* be rejected.
>> A metaphysic which asserts no more than "Something X exists which
>> causes our experiences" supports science by inviting us to explore
>> possible X's which would have consequences discernible within our
>> experience. A metaphysic which postulates entities or processes or
>> properties which imply no discernible consequences within our
>> experience are gratuitous and can be distracting, by diverting
>> attention and efforts to pondering noncognitive propositions ("How
>> many angels can dance on the head of a pin?").
> We can explore "possible metaphysical Xs" all we like, but we can't
> do science with the idea since we cannot observe those Xs even in
> principle. Whatever is arising within the ER cannot be empirically
> demonstrated to have any connection with whatever possible Xs we might
> want to conjure up.
We cannot observe such X's as electrons, quarks, gluons, "dark energy,"
etc., etc. Are you saying we can't do science with them?
Possible X's which have empirical consequences are not "metaphysical
X's." They are instantiations of an entity posited metaphysically,
however.
> I agree with Howell when he says that "any objective theory must be
> incomplete" and "there can be no complete objective theory of the
> world".
So do I.
>> You have not cited a single thing that would not also be true of an
>> information processing system designed as I have described.
> It is entirely possible that "this" (subjective perspective upon the
> world) may accompany the activity going on in an information
> processing system that regards itself as "my brain". What is not at
> all clear to me is the claim that the activity going on in any
> information processing system that can't describe its internal states
> is simply, and without further elaboration, *identical* with a
> subjective perspective upon a world.
It is identical if no differences between the two can be discerned or
specified. You then have a distinction without a difference. I don't
mean *numerical* identity, here, of course, but identity of type --- the
type being that defined by some *verifiable* criteria for a "conscious
system."
(A number of counterexamples have been proposed for Leibniz's II
principle, but none of them would cover the present case).
> If you feel that this claim for
> identity needs no defence then there can be no further meaningful
> debate on this issue, and we should each go and use our time more
> productively.
It does need a defense, which I just gave. But if you presume there is a
difference deriving from some non-verifiable property which one system
possesses and the other does not, then there is probably no point to
further debate. Such a debate is fruitless, because the thesis asserted
is noncognitive.
>> We don't *experience* our own subjective perspective on the world, in
>> the same act, so to speak, wherein we experience the resistance of
>> some bodies to movement?
>
> There is not an ER, a distinct CR, and a distinct
> "observer/constructor" (O/C) that takes data from the ER as input and
> provides data for the CR as output (though that is precisely how the
> situation is presented within the CR). The O/C is an element in a
> story told in the CR -- a story that entails that the O/C
> "experiences" the ER by some unspecified mechanism, and this raises
> the question as to how the O/C can have any knowledge of this "act of
> experiencing". "Well," the story goes, "the O/C *experiences* its act
> of experiencing"... but if so then how does the O/C have any knowledge
> of this "act of experiencing its act of experiencing"? An infinite
> regress usually gives warning of a faulty argument.
There is no "knowledge of" an act of experiencing, unless you're merely
referring to a memory of an experience. An episode of experience is an
episode of learning, i.e., of knowledge acquisition. They are the same
thing.
And a conscious system does indeed begin experiencing using a mechanism
it does not understand, and cannot specify, at the time it begins
experiencing. But that does not preclude it from eventually puzzling out
that mechanism.
Not all infinite regresses, BTW, are vicious. They are not vicious if by
explaining one step, you explain them all. I.e., if we can explain how P
knows A, then we will likely also have explained how P knows that he
knows A, etc.
