Really enjoying writing on the train. Here is this mornings commute notes.
Morality is often referenced in objective terms (I think this is good for psychological reasons) with the idea of a godless world being said to lack any place for this notion.
The failure of he imagination here is one of treating morals as an abstract notion rather than a practical one. If we are to assume that the existence of morals is a result of our evolutionary and cultural development, then we should treat it as a biological fact.
Another example of a biological fact about humans is the existence of opposable thumbs. You can metaphorically substitute the existence of thumbs for any inference about the development,or platonic nature, of morality.
Do animals have thumbs?
Well some do and some don't it depends on their evolutionary heritage. More over we can see that there are different variations and levels of sophistication to thumbs.
What do we do with people who have no thumbs or under-developed thumbs?
We try to give them assistance.
Would intelligent extra terrestrial entities have thumbs?
We imagine so, but they may have developed a different method of gripping things.
____________________________________________
The focus becomes different here, more general. This may be a great topic to explore in more detail.
We are then left the question of whether certain types of things are inherent in their materials or if they are one of a possible group of strategies that might be deployed.
The two types of objective ideas are the Platonic ideal and the developmental solution. These may be in full philosophical conflict or may exist in some synergistic form. With certain ideas being inherent and discoverable while others built from reaction to constraints of the past.
We can also see that when applied to mathematics we have systems that might be inherent in the definitions of things while other ideas are tools developed to deal with a limited realm of information.
We see that systems are to some extent a simplification of something greater. We have from incompleteness the understanding that any single system we create will fail to describe itself and be self consistent. This is overcome to some degree by overlapping separate exclusionary systems. And may be the result of trying to describe the universe in terms simpler than itself. We have then (if true) reached then limit of the "thing in and of itself"
Friday, February 10, 2012
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Unstated premises
Trains of thought number two. Where I see how much use and sense my free form notes written on a train ride make.
In most statements there are supporting ideas that are never directly addressed. These are called unstated premises. When we evaluate truth. Maims we should be aware that there may be certain intermediary steps or fundamental ideas that are not explicit in the argument. It is a good exercise to determine what these are, or might be. If an unstated premise conflicts with any of the stated premises it should be used as a consistency test and if found to not be a necessary condition ignored. If the premises as stated are insufficient the arguer must either state additional premises, restructure the argument, or abandon their rational claim. Premises that are left unstated should only be done so in a formal situation if the argument would be needlessly cluttered by them, or If they are not required for a particular section of the argument ( and will be stated later). In informal argument premises may be left unstated if they are thought to be implicit, for elegance, brevity, or simplicity. If an argument is. Challenged on grounds of insufficient evidence, then unstated premises may be brought to bear.
In most statements there are supporting ideas that are never directly addressed. These are called unstated premises. When we evaluate truth. Maims we should be aware that there may be certain intermediary steps or fundamental ideas that are not explicit in the argument. It is a good exercise to determine what these are, or might be. If an unstated premise conflicts with any of the stated premises it should be used as a consistency test and if found to not be a necessary condition ignored. If the premises as stated are insufficient the arguer must either state additional premises, restructure the argument, or abandon their rational claim. Premises that are left unstated should only be done so in a formal situation if the argument would be needlessly cluttered by them, or If they are not required for a particular section of the argument ( and will be stated later). In informal argument premises may be left unstated if they are thought to be implicit, for elegance, brevity, or simplicity. If an argument is. Challenged on grounds of insufficient evidence, then unstated premises may be brought to bear.
Monday, February 6, 2012
Necessary and sufficient. With and without the Oxford comma.
Notes from my evening commute.
We must understand that for a proposition to be true there are certain minimum requirements that must be met. These must be true in ALL Cases and we call them necessary conditions. When you are making or investigating a truth claim it may be helpful to determine what these are. If any of these fail to be true you may dismiss the claim as having false premises or conclusions (deductive). If the necessary conditions are met, we then may ask if there are sufficient conditions. These differ in that a failure of necessary conditions negates a claim but does not support it, while sufficient conditions suggest that it may be true. To rephrase we may see that falsification may be deductive while truth is inductive at best. Holding a position based on the necessary alone is week for positive. Claims. While meeting the minimum requirements it is not a guarantee. Sufficient reasons are selected after the necessary, we can use such tools as elegance and simplicity as well as best explanation.
To suggest a belief is rational is to say that it has covered both the necessary AND sufficient conditions of that conclusion. If sufficient conditions are not met you have at best an appeal to pragmatism or some other form of wish thinking. Agnostics can be separated into two claims; that a thing cannot be known in principle or that a thing is unknown given the current information ( but is knowable). I suppose we could be agnostic about agnosticism but that road seems short and while diverting it is beyond the scope of this essay.
We must understand that for a proposition to be true there are certain minimum requirements that must be met. These must be true in ALL Cases and we call them necessary conditions. When you are making or investigating a truth claim it may be helpful to determine what these are. If any of these fail to be true you may dismiss the claim as having false premises or conclusions (deductive). If the necessary conditions are met, we then may ask if there are sufficient conditions. These differ in that a failure of necessary conditions negates a claim but does not support it, while sufficient conditions suggest that it may be true. To rephrase we may see that falsification may be deductive while truth is inductive at best. Holding a position based on the necessary alone is week for positive. Claims. While meeting the minimum requirements it is not a guarantee. Sufficient reasons are selected after the necessary, we can use such tools as elegance and simplicity as well as best explanation.
To suggest a belief is rational is to say that it has covered both the necessary AND sufficient conditions of that conclusion. If sufficient conditions are not met you have at best an appeal to pragmatism or some other form of wish thinking. Agnostics can be separated into two claims; that a thing cannot be known in principle or that a thing is unknown given the current information ( but is knowable). I suppose we could be agnostic about agnosticism but that road seems short and while diverting it is beyond the scope of this essay.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Is it Reasonable?
Some of my friends have been claiming things. I made this website for them really. These claims range from the supernatural to the extraterrestrial, they include government conspiracies, diet, and medicinal advice. They include positions on politics, and science; on which news sources are best, and which can't be trusted. These are people I like and care for. They believe these things, and want me to believe them too.
I think they are wrong. Not just a little bit, but as wrong as you can be. Could they be right? Sure. Are they? Nope. Pretty sure they aren't. It may seem confrontational to say that, which is what I want. I want to confront the beliefs my friends hold that I disagree with. They think they're right and I think that I'm right, so where does that leave us?
The most important thing about my view point is that it is evidence based. And with that comes the responsibility of changing beliefs to match the evidence. I tried to sum this up into the following statement:
If you don't know what it would take to change your mind; then you don't know why you believe it. If you don't know why you believe it, then you have abandoned the rational. To quote Plato quoting Socrates (probably) "The unexamined life is not worth living"
With that in mind I will now take to examining the beliefs put toward me by my friends and what it would take for me to accept those things. I will then examine their evidence and adjust my beliefs accordingly. I will ask them to do the same, if I find their worldview lacking and present a deconstruction or alternative.
I have already begun the work here in my series On the Nature of Discourse and Argument. And I would like to think of that as supplemental to the conversations I wish to have, they are the tools that I will use to support my specific ideas.
The importance of specifics cannot be stressed enough. Too often I have found myself in conversation where when I challenge any single idea or single part of an idea, I am told that that part doesn't matter or they personally don't believe that part. I will do my best to break ideas down into the premises which are necessary and the conclusions that are deductive or highly likely if inductive. This is where I start.
I think they are wrong. Not just a little bit, but as wrong as you can be. Could they be right? Sure. Are they? Nope. Pretty sure they aren't. It may seem confrontational to say that, which is what I want. I want to confront the beliefs my friends hold that I disagree with. They think they're right and I think that I'm right, so where does that leave us?
The most important thing about my view point is that it is evidence based. And with that comes the responsibility of changing beliefs to match the evidence. I tried to sum this up into the following statement:
If you don't know what it would take to change your mind; then you don't know why you believe it. If you don't know why you believe it, then you have abandoned the rational. To quote Plato quoting Socrates (probably) "The unexamined life is not worth living"
With that in mind I will now take to examining the beliefs put toward me by my friends and what it would take for me to accept those things. I will then examine their evidence and adjust my beliefs accordingly. I will ask them to do the same, if I find their worldview lacking and present a deconstruction or alternative.
I have already begun the work here in my series On the Nature of Discourse and Argument. And I would like to think of that as supplemental to the conversations I wish to have, they are the tools that I will use to support my specific ideas.
The importance of specifics cannot be stressed enough. Too often I have found myself in conversation where when I challenge any single idea or single part of an idea, I am told that that part doesn't matter or they personally don't believe that part. I will do my best to break ideas down into the premises which are necessary and the conclusions that are deductive or highly likely if inductive. This is where I start.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Re: Arguments for the existance of god
Here is a collection and my responses to various arguments for deism or theism. Often we are asked to not only disprove or refute the ideas being presented but are held to the requirement of offering some replacement explanation. While I enjoy the challenge of coming up with a rational consistent worldview based on the facts at hand, this simply misses the point. Atheism is by definition a null hypothesis, this means it is the assertion that the idea put forward is not true. It need only demonstrate that sufficient evidence has not been presented to accept the arguments and their conclusions or that the arguments are fallacies. That is what I seek to do here. My own ideas about origin and purpose will have to wait, though they will likely be touched upon.
The Main Premises:
None of the claims are very good. You cannot move from one claim to another via deduction or induction. The claims are both independent (they do not reference each other) yet interdependent in the way they are thought to provide proof. The claims all assume a definition (or definitions) of god without giving reasons for those definitions or explicitly stating them.
The Specific Arguments:
Please note that I am ignoring and young earth anti evolution arguments; they are not the point of this post nor as interesting philosophically as the ones I am choosing to discuss. I would happily cover that subject in another post at some point, or possibly just direct people to other sources (more likely).
Cosmological- The Prime Mover
What happened before time? Where was space before the big bang? These questions and those like them cannot be answered with our current understanding of physics. They may not have a sensible answer. There is a point before which we can say or see nothing. I think it is safe to say "we don't know" and if you want to say "ah well I know..." and wink knowingly at Jesus or Thor, over the shoulders of ALL OF PHYSICS, then you are going to have to show your work. The main argument is There is no thing which is un-caused, this assertion seems to make sense until you realize that it A) begs the question and B) relates to things in time and space rather than time and space itself. Can the term "cause" have any meaning outside of the idea of time?
Teleological- the argument from design. Paley's watch. Darwin starts our path here, after that we can begin to view another method. I wont bother referencing poor design, or cruel or petty (there might be gods that fit that) IMPORTANT an over-arching order is not the same as god.
The second part is the anthropic principle in reverse; Here is often employed even more physics references and a misunderstanding of certain probabilities. Of course the anthropic principle suggests the first proper answer to this idea. If you want to talk about probabilities I will need you to show the numbers you are using as well as how you came by them and the equations.
Ontological - (not ornithological but there is a joke there somehow I'm sure) Anslem's conception as I have heard it stated is a non sequitur. "Imagine the most perfect being. It would be more perfect if it existed. Therefore it exists"
There also seems to be an inherent Platonism, with god as the ideal ideal, which I question on more basic grounds. This is often tied to an assertion that Math and Logic exceed the physical universe (and therefore precede it?) to which; for now one can only say "incompleteness theorem"
From Morality - This is typically stated that without god there is no basis for morality. The emphasis is on god as an idea and not a specific deity. This argument is fallacious for a few reasons. 1 it is an Appeal to Authority 2 it posits that god is the source of morality which is part of the definition given (circular reasoning) 3 Basically the argument from evil in reverse without specific conception of god. (the argument from evil is only to rule out a specific type of god -loving, all knowing and all powerful)
From Faith - not really a relevant argument from evidence please stop it.
From Scripture - (revelation) Well this is the leap from theism to religion.It relies on specific texts to be true. These are not as spurious as the from faith argument but are beyond the scope of this essay and will be addressed separately.
From History - This is always a specific idea to support a specific religion. I plan to look specifically at the resurrection claims about Jesus as most of my sources are Christian apologists. Any links to other historical claims are welcome)
My sources for the original pro arguments against which I argue.
Hitchens Vs Craig
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KBx4vvlbZ8
Hitches Vs Turek
http://vimeo.com/1904911
Hitchens Vs Boteach (actually doesn't believe in evolution) Mainly failing at the math and argument from incredulity.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnMYL8sF7bQ
Hitchens Vs Mcgrath
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0U1b7Xgyq-Y
Hitchens Vs D'Souza (some interesting ideas couched in logical fallacies)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9V85OykSDT8
Additional Sources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existence_of_God#Arguments_for_the_existence_of_God
Mentions Historical Resurrection (does not give actual sources they must be acquired)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fpp37iJogFI&feature=related
The Main Premises:
None of the claims are very good. You cannot move from one claim to another via deduction or induction. The claims are both independent (they do not reference each other) yet interdependent in the way they are thought to provide proof. The claims all assume a definition (or definitions) of god without giving reasons for those definitions or explicitly stating them.
The Specific Arguments:
Please note that I am ignoring and young earth anti evolution arguments; they are not the point of this post nor as interesting philosophically as the ones I am choosing to discuss. I would happily cover that subject in another post at some point, or possibly just direct people to other sources (more likely).
Cosmological- The Prime Mover
What happened before time? Where was space before the big bang? These questions and those like them cannot be answered with our current understanding of physics. They may not have a sensible answer. There is a point before which we can say or see nothing. I think it is safe to say "we don't know" and if you want to say "ah well I know..." and wink knowingly at Jesus or Thor, over the shoulders of ALL OF PHYSICS, then you are going to have to show your work. The main argument is There is no thing which is un-caused, this assertion seems to make sense until you realize that it A) begs the question and B) relates to things in time and space rather than time and space itself. Can the term "cause" have any meaning outside of the idea of time?
Teleological- the argument from design. Paley's watch. Darwin starts our path here, after that we can begin to view another method. I wont bother referencing poor design, or cruel or petty (there might be gods that fit that) IMPORTANT an over-arching order is not the same as god.
The second part is the anthropic principle in reverse; Here is often employed even more physics references and a misunderstanding of certain probabilities. Of course the anthropic principle suggests the first proper answer to this idea. If you want to talk about probabilities I will need you to show the numbers you are using as well as how you came by them and the equations.
Ontological - (not ornithological but there is a joke there somehow I'm sure) Anslem's conception as I have heard it stated is a non sequitur. "Imagine the most perfect being. It would be more perfect if it existed. Therefore it exists"
There also seems to be an inherent Platonism, with god as the ideal ideal, which I question on more basic grounds. This is often tied to an assertion that Math and Logic exceed the physical universe (and therefore precede it?) to which; for now one can only say "incompleteness theorem"
From Morality - This is typically stated that without god there is no basis for morality. The emphasis is on god as an idea and not a specific deity. This argument is fallacious for a few reasons. 1 it is an Appeal to Authority 2 it posits that god is the source of morality which is part of the definition given (circular reasoning) 3 Basically the argument from evil in reverse without specific conception of god. (the argument from evil is only to rule out a specific type of god -loving, all knowing and all powerful)
From Faith - not really a relevant argument from evidence please stop it.
From Scripture - (revelation) Well this is the leap from theism to religion.It relies on specific texts to be true. These are not as spurious as the from faith argument but are beyond the scope of this essay and will be addressed separately.
From History - This is always a specific idea to support a specific religion. I plan to look specifically at the resurrection claims about Jesus as most of my sources are Christian apologists. Any links to other historical claims are welcome)
My sources for the original pro arguments against which I argue.
Hitchens Vs Craig
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KBx4vvlbZ8
Hitches Vs Turek
http://vimeo.com/1904911
Hitchens Vs Boteach (actually doesn't believe in evolution) Mainly failing at the math and argument from incredulity.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnMYL8sF7bQ
Hitchens Vs Mcgrath
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0U1b7Xgyq-Y
Hitchens Vs D'Souza (some interesting ideas couched in logical fallacies)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9V85OykSDT8
Additional Sources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existence_of_God#Arguments_for_the_existence_of_God
Mentions Historical Resurrection (does not give actual sources they must be acquired)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fpp37iJogFI&feature=related
Monday, January 30, 2012
On the Theory of Natural Selection and Common Descent pt 1 The Premises.
To the best of my understanding. I am doing this as an attempt to articulate the ideas and see where my knowledge base needs improvement. The premises, will be followed by the argument and then possibly some examples/thought experiments. If you feel that anything is missing, unstated, or unclear; please comment so I may clarify.
The Premises:
Creatures Reproduce
Creatures Die
Some traits breed true (inheritance)
Children are not exactly like their parents (variation)
Children are somewhat like their parents (inheritance)
If a creature dies before it can reproduce it wont have children
Not all creatures of the same "type" are identical (variation)
If none of a type of creature successfully breeds, we call this extinction.
If one variation of a "type" of creature is more successful (in breeding) than another variation then more of the next generation will resemble it.
Existing generations are replaced by their offspring (survival) or not at all (extinction).
The Premises:
Creatures Reproduce
Creatures Die
Some traits breed true (inheritance)
Children are not exactly like their parents (variation)
Children are somewhat like their parents (inheritance)
If a creature dies before it can reproduce it wont have children
Not all creatures of the same "type" are identical (variation)
If none of a type of creature successfully breeds, we call this extinction.
If one variation of a "type" of creature is more successful (in breeding) than another variation then more of the next generation will resemble it.
Existing generations are replaced by their offspring (survival) or not at all (extinction).
Saturday, January 21, 2012
SOPA PIPA response.
Here is the first response that I got on the bill from any of the people I emailed. It reads like a form letter, but that's OK. I made a form letter and sent it to them. I expect that I will receive a few similar ones.
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