Clarification of Terms

[jan]

Or perhaps the Individual who started the thread shouldn’t quote me, or direct his comments to me personally in the future?

[...]

These individuals know their argument cannot be made on its own merits so instead they are forced to appeal to the moderators for salvation.

Yes, I did quote you, and in a somewhat impolite manner perhaps. I also tend to agree with Hal that the occurence of derailation of a thread is something one has to accept. I'm fine with it. By the way, it was not me who PMed Hal. I am certainly flattered if somebody thinks this is such an excellent thread that it should be protected, but I guess me and also this thread can stand a lot of abuse and weirdness. And since Immaterialists (sorry, I mean Amaterialists of course) are kind of rare, I think I have to take all I can get.

Nevertheless I would say that your posts fail to address what I was trying to say. Instead it seems to me the word "will" serves as a trigger for you to pop up with your favourite subject. I guess perhaps we could need some more clarification of terms...

Ambitious Free Will
The concept of determinism is, as far as I know, not older than the 19th century. There have been Materialists before, Democrit for example, but as far as I know, there are no hints that Democrit ever considered the problems of Determinism, responsibility, guilt and free will. On the other hand, if you postulate a closed, deterministic world, as modern Materialism does, you run into some problems: how can it be fair if god punishes a sinner, if the sinner just follows the laws of physics? How can anybody be responsible for anything? How can mundane punishment be justified? That is, to be made responsible for something, is it necessary to be able to behave in a manner not completely described by the laws of physics? If you assume an immortal soul, the problems seems to vanish (it only seems to vanish: does the immortal soul obey some "Laws of Beyond"? Or does it behave erratic? Or is there a third possibility?).

Therefore, I would define an Ambitious Free Will as some kind of ability to behave in a way not determinated by the laws of physic. Obviously, from the stance of a Materialist, such an Ambitious Free Will doesn't exist: we obey TLOP, end of story (oh, by the way: if you need to demonstrate it, it should run like this: "according to materialism, everything obeys TLOP, therefore we obey TLOP"; your syllogism is, unfortunatly, a fallacy).

Modest Free Will
Nevertheless, although we are just some aggregations of atoms and nothing more, from a materialistic point of view, not all configurations of atoms are equal. Human beings show some traits the moon doesn't show, and I would say that it sounds perfectly sensible to try to have words at hand for some of those differences. Although human beings obey the laws of physics, they make decisions, like, for example, computers do computations, despite the fact that computers are just made out of atoms, while the moon, also made of atoms, doesn't output the results of computations. I would say that it would be very, very odd to claim that Modest Free Will doesn't exist (and perhaps this is the reason why you have so much trouble here: it is rather pointless to prove the inconsistency of Ambitious Free Will and Materialism to people who believe in Modest Free Will).

This still leaves it as an open problem what kind of Free Will you actually need for certain philosophical and metaphysical purposes. Indeed, this open problem has been discussed and is still discussed by many philosophers. Different Materialists solve it different.

I guess if people say "free will exists", what they mean is most of the times something like "modest free will is sufficient for all of my purposes".

 

[jan]

I'll admit to be overly jumpy about this particular bit of terminology, but I'm weary of the basic misunderstanding in general society of the nature of evolution.

I share these concerns. A better word than "purpose" would be welcomed.

Dennett has developed a philosphy that you are able to ascribe intentions to genes, you can say "the genes want to survive". He calls this the "Intentional Stance". Of course, the genes have no intention at all, and they don't want anything at all (after all, they are just abstractions). So Dennetts views are a bit misleading, confusing, and smell of instrumentalism. But I can see what he means: saying that the genes want to survive is misleading, but still a bit better than to say that animals have "an urge to preservate the species". If you follow Dennett, you can say things like "because the genes want to replicate, the animals want to have sex" or "because the genes have a kind of pseudo-intentionality, humans have real intentionality". It's similair to say "mother earth made it work that-and-that way". Of course there is no Big Mommy Gaia who made anything or wants anything. But sometimes such talking comes quite handy.

"Meaning" seems to arise from significance after being brought within the scope of language. It appears to require a social order to exist.

Animals behave as if they recognize signs, but we don't know that they use meaning, except perhaps in the case of Koko the gorilla.

To ask what the meaning of a thing is, is to ask what it signifies. If it does not signify, then it has no meaning.

How's that for a start?

I agree that this describes how the word "meaning" works in sentences like "the meaning of the word x is y". Usually, I have no trouble with this. But the phrase "meaning of life" is usually not used in a manner of talking about something signifying something else. Perhaps the term "meaning of life" is meaningless, since it doesn't signify anything?

Really good stuff, Jan. At the same time, to say that 'the universe was not made/created willingly.' seems awkward to me. When I think of defining God(s), I usually think in terms of intentionality, by which I mean goal-directed effort, e.g., intentionality capable of abrogating natural law, with the intent of excluding such superfluous constructs as those posed by pantheism.

I'm sorry, but I have some trouble to understand you (it's late, forgive me). Could you repeat this, using more or different words?

The 'Laws of Physics' are human constructs, testable explanations that describe ever more closely what matter does. Matter does not obey the 'Laws of Physics' but, rather, the 'Laws of Physics' obey the dynamics/attributes of matter.

This one I understand. And agree.

 

[hammegk]

This one I understand. And agree.

I'll be darn. How do you employ the "matter" that is you to change TLOP?

(TLOP being the terrain, not our current math/physics map of that terrain.)

 

[ReasonableDoubt]

I'll be darn. How do you employ the "matter" that is you to change TLOP? (TLOP being the terrain, not our current math/physics map of that terrain.)

NO! TLOP is not the terrain. Matter is the terrain.

 

[Upchurch]

I like to think of the laws of physics as a consequence of, or even co-existant of, spacetime and matter/energy rather than the cause of spacetime and matter/energy.

But that's just conjecture.

 

[Dymanic]

Originally posted by Jan

If you follow Dennett, you can say things like "because the genes want to replicate, the animals want to have sex" or "because the genes have a kind of pseudo-intentionality, humans have real intentionality".

This is indeed interesting stuff, even though I often find some of the conclusions I arrive at a little disturbing.

You might say genes make us want to do things like have sex whether we want to want to or not. But it's hard to get serious about attributing anything remotely resembling the capacity to 'want' stuff to anything as inert as a sequence of nucleotide bases -- I can't go even as far as pseudo-intentionality.

I doubt if anyone really likes such explanations, but one way of explaining what we experience as desire or intent is as electro-chemical brain states. With us as little more than meat puppets dancing to genetically authored tunes, whatever intent we exhibit, it isn't ours (or maybe it's just that we can't be sure it's ours).

Genes themselves though, don't have anything under them to dictate their actions (except maybe for selection, but genes don't know anything about that). Doesn't matter anyway, since genes don't actually act at all; their effects are a result of them being acted upon -- but then, the same could be said of any element in the system; cells don't decide what tasks to perform, ribozomes don't make choices about what mRNA strands to read, etc. At any level, what happens is an inevitable consequence of what is happening at lower levels, elements at those levels blindly behaving in the only way they can, given their properties and structures. Billiard balls, all the way down (a tentative conclusion, based on a preponderance of the evidence).

From a practical standpoint, acting as if genes (and lots of other things) have intent (usually in the form of human-like intent) can not only be a reasonable working hypothesis, but it's way warmer and fuzzier.

 

[hammegk]

NO! TLOP is not the terrain. Matter is the terrain.

Boy you catch on fast. The only argument you will ever have is "matter exists" therefore, "matter exists". Well done!

 

[Franko]

NO! TLOP is not the terrain. Matter is the terrain.

Let’s make an analogy:

TLOP = The rules of Chess
Matter = The Chess board and Chess pieces

Now what you seem to be saying is that if we gave a bunch of chess boards and chess pieces to a bunch of people who had never played chess before that they would all develop/discover the rules of chess just from the board and the pieces alone.

If that is true then it implies that the rules of the game were inherent in (intrinsic to) the chess board and chess pieces.

Now lets imagine two situations:

1) there are two individuals who both know the official rules of chess, but don’t have a chess board or and chess pieces.

2) there are two individuals who possess a chess board and chess pieces, but have no idea about the official rules of chess.

I submit that one of these pairs of individuals will be able to play a game of chess by the official rules, and one will not. It’s the rules of chess that make chess - Chess, not the board or the pieces. If you know the rules you can imagine the board and pieces and play the game in your head. Just ask any grandmaster.

 

[Upchurch]

Allow me to make a better analogy:

Matter/Energy & Spacetime = jigsaw puzzle pieces
The laws of physics = how those pieces fit together

The laws of physics are what they are because matter, et al., is what it is. How a puzzle fits together is not independent of the puzzle pieces but determined by the pieces themselves. Likewise, the laws of physics and matter, et al., don't exist independently of each other. It is meaningless to speak of the laws of physics in the absence of matter, et al.

 

[hammegk]

Upchurch

And how do you answer the question, need "matter" exist for the logic of 1+1=2 in every integer base greater than binary to be TRUE?

Does the reality of "integers" depend on "matter"?

 

[hgc]

Re: Upchurch

And how do you answer the question, need "matter" exist for the logic of 1+1=2 in every integer base greater than binary to be TRUE?

Does the reality of "integers" depend on "matter"?

Integers, like TLOP, are a human construct. No matter --> no humans --> no integers.

 

[hammegk]

Re: Re: Upchurch

Integers, like TLOP, are a human construct. No matter --> no humans --> no integers.

Nice assertion, anyway. The Magic 8 Ball says "unproven" (and of course still circular).

I do agree this topic brings the discussion nearer a crux for materialists & non-materialists alike.

 

[Upchurch]

Re: Re: Re: Upchurch

Nice assertion, anyway. The Magic 8 Ball says "unproven" (and of course still circular).

Circular how? It's not assuming materialism to prove materialism. It's asserting that without the material world "1+1=2" doesn't exist.

 

[Dymanic]

Considerable potential for misunderstanding arises from certain implications inherent in words like 'law' and 'obey'.

When we observe elements of the physical world behaving in certain ways with sufficient consistency, we say that 'the laws of physics are being obeyed'. The use of such terms involves considerable baggage -- deeply woven into the fabric of our language -- in the form of certain tacit assumptions that make sense only from a particular perspective, one which includes goals, authority structures, and systems of rewards and punishments. If indulged, these assumptions lead to absurd conclusions.

The rules of chess are arbitrary, having nothing whatever to do with the nature of the pieces (play it with rocks or blobs of jello if you like). For this reason, nothing about the rules of chess can be derived by observing the pieces -- on their own, they don't do anything. If it can be said that there are laws of chess, these would be in the form of observations about the way things work: "bishops are weak when a lot of squares of their color are occupied by pawns", or: "rooks are stronger when united" (though actually, the likelihood of exceptions to these render them too weak to deserve the term, 'law').

The fact that rooks are stronger when united on the same rank or file is not a result of their obedient conformance to some royal decree (TLOC I suppose it would be) but rather something that emerges as an inevitable consequence of the nature of rooks and the geometry of a chessboard.

 

[jan]

I'll be darn. How do you employ the "matter" that is you to change TLOP?

Nobody claims that TLOP changes matter, and nobody claims that matter is able to change TLOP.

I do not know why it is possible to observe the results of laws at all. I admit that this is a problem. But this is a problem for Materialists, Immaterialists or Dualists, as long as they believe that things obey laws.

You might say genes make us want to do things like have sex whether we want to want to or not. But it's hard to get serious about attributing anything remotely resembling the capacity to 'want' stuff to anything as inert as a sequence of nucleotide bases -- I can't go even as far as pseudo-intentionality.

[...]

From a practical standpoint, acting as if genes (and lots of other things) have intent (usually in the form of human-like intent) can not only be a reasonable working hypothesis, but it's way warmer and fuzzier.

I think genes can't be identified with nucleotide bases, but fortunately, you wrote "sequences of nucleotide bases" - as I understand it, genes are abstractions, like a sentence is not the same as the ink on the paper.

So it is even more clear that genes can't do or want anything. And if we talk about what genes "want" and call this a useful (although not strictly true) way of talking (a bit like the Church considered Heliocentrism as something false, but useful to make predictions), I am not very happy with this kind of Instrumentalism. I want to know the real story, not how to talk nice. So I am not perfectly satisfied with Dennett's method to see intentions into things that don't have intentions (therefore I tried to split it into intentions and something I called "purposes").

And how do you answer the question, need "matter" exist for the logic of 1+1=2 in every integer base greater than binary to be TRUE?

Does the reality of "integers" depend on "matter"?

I guess most people would agree that TLOP and our universe have a somewhat arbitrary nature mathematics lack. It is quite easy to imagine a universe with physical laws different from those observable in our universe, while it would be a great challenge to imagine a world with a different maths (I know, I know: there are plenty of different kinds of formal logics around, but I am talking about a world where you could start with the same rules of inference and the same set of axioms and where you could get to different conclusions). So it seems to be quite natural to assume that "1+1=2" is independent of any matter (it is still possible to doubt it, as Upchurch and hgc show). On the other hand, it is not very natural to assume that something like gravity has to exist in every possible universe. You have some kind of universe, and it shows some kind of behaviour, and I have no idea why it is this kind of universe showing this kind of behaviour (well, I do have some ideas, but unfortunatly, they are all rather metaphysical...)

Materialism has had some evolution since the days of Democrit. I would say that the main and primary concept is not the atom: "matter" means "that what is responsible for making our experiences lawfull". The electrons and protons are just a subsequent model how this matter (the thing itself, so to speak) works, and it is easy to see that they are not primary principles (since a materialist doesn't hesitate to replace the protons with smaller particles).

Considerable potential for misunderstanding arises from certain implications inherent in words like 'law' and 'obey'.

[...Explanation of 'law' and 'obey'...]

Thanks. That was a good clarification of terms. Now that is what I would call "on topic".

 

[ReasonableDoubt]

Boy you catch on fast. The only argument you will ever have is "matter exists" therefore, "matter exists". Well done!

I haven't a clue what you're saying. In retrospect, this is a good thing, since it suggests that we have more in common than I would have thought.

 

[Dymanic]

Originally posted by Jan

...as I understand it, genes are abstractions, like a sentence is not the same as the ink on the paper.

We are now staring the problem of the meaning of meaning right in the face.

Genes, like sentences, might be considered as elements within one system which correspond to elements in another, and which may trigger specific changes in the latter system if it treats them as symbols which map to its own local values. The method of encoding does not however, have to be explicit or intentional.

Dark clouds in combination with falling atmospheric pressure may mean that it is likely to rain, but they don't mean to mean that, and whether or not they do mean that depends entirely on their being used as variables with certain values within a system dedicated to predicting weather; absent that, they just are what they are.

One of the most interesting discussions in G.E.B. (I think it was GEB...wasn't it GEB? I can't seem to find it...) is one in which Hofstadter relates his efforts to defend a challenge brought by a student against his assertion that no intrinsic relationship exists between nucleotide bases and the amino acids they code for. Hofstadter had more or less stated flatly that the relationship is arbitrary, deriving entirely from their being interpreted as symbols by the ribozomes. Conceivably, in his view, the encoding could have been accomplished using some other chemical. The pesky student insisted that there must be something about nucleotide bases that made them the only possible choice. Hofstadter's defense is fascinating.

 

[jan]

It was "Metamagical Themas" (the other big book of Hofstadter), chapter 26.

Perhaps we should clarify the notion of genes? A natural way to think of them is to say that a gene is a specific sequence of nucleotide bases. But it is also possible to define a "gene" in a way that is independent of nucleotide bases. Remember, Mendel obviously hadn't any clue what nucleotide bases are, and he was nevertheless able to discover the genes. Therefore I was saying that I consider genes to be abstractions. On the other hand, if you think of them as sequences of nucleotide bases, they are quite concrete and material, and (unlike sentences) without meaning (but with a function?).

 

[Dymanic]

Clarifying the notion of genes may prove to be a fairly tough challenge.

What's interesting here is the way genes can be viewed from a number of different levels, their meaning being somewhat different on each level.

Since natural selection can't 'see' genes, acting only on whole organisms, the relevant context is that of an organism interacting with its environment. Mendel could be said to be looking at genes at a level below this, but to what extent it is proper to say that the traits he was looking at were the results of genes, or composites of genes, is not clear, at least when we make reference to 'genes' in the ordinary, somewhat casual way. Being able talk about 'genes for long legs' is convenient, but it is important to understand that this is a shorthand device, and that such a thing is more accurately described as the result of the collective effects of large numbers of genes. (Of course, a listener might hear, "jeans for long legs", and thereby become even more confused).

When talking about genes, we are more or less free to draw the line anywhere we want -- it's like talking about writings, or collections of writings. To further confuscate the matter is the fact that the genetic code appears rich in instances of 'multiple superimposed functionality', and 'frame dependent interpretation'. The former makes it hard to guarantee coherent explanations of what it is that individual genes (however you define that) are doing. The latter illustrates beautifully the fact that meaning resides as much in the decoding as it does in what is encoded -- the same sequence read from a different starting point produces a completely different series of amino acids.

 

[Peter Soderqvist]

The levels of selection are complementary!

A gene is an arbitrary piece of a chromosome, it is large enough to pass on heritage on germ lines, but not so large so its inheritance gets lost through meiotic shuffling, natural section works directly on the organism, and indirectly on genes, since a gene is a member in a gene-manship, and the genes programming the organism's behavior, so the organism can carry out the instruction, so natural selection can work on it! The "smaller" the brain is, the closer connection there is between genotype, and phenotypic behavior!

A sea elephant can have approximately 80 females in his harem, and he attacks every intruder who dares to invade his territory, but humans because of their "bigger" brains are busy in the main with cultural activity! Humans are more engaged with propagation of information, or pass on knowledge into next generation, than to spread genes, like the sea elephants do! Variation and selection are at work in nature, just as demand and supply is at work in societies! A beaver is an excellent builder of dams, but the beaver dams 50 thousand years ago, are build in a similar manner today, as they where then, compare that with a ancient human Mud-Hut from The Stone Age, in a Forest, with a modern Skyscraper in New York today, and you will see that; the human mind, differ a lot from the animal mind!