tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7164603649660539619.post5833223989702555518..comments2023-12-15T03:43:21.347-05:00Comments on Somewhat Abnormal: Against PhysicalismRobert Oerterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09708981993708509662noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7164603649660539619.post-85913514540767213962013-10-14T12:58:46.814-04:002013-10-14T12:58:46.814-04:00Feser's response to this is interesting in tha...Feser's response to this is interesting in that it undermines his own A-T philosophy. But Ross's proof is easily rejected.<br /><br />Suppose Jack approaches Jill in a bar. He makes advances. Jill wonders if this guy is married. But she doesn't want to ask for ID and perform a credit check. So she invents a logical proof:<br /><br />1) All married men wear a ring.<br />2) No single man wears a ring.<br />3) Thus no married man is a single man.<br /><br />If you think this proof should set Jill's mind at ease when she sees Jack wears no ring, then you stand with Ross and Feser. For that is the structure of Ross's proof. But for me, this so-called proof is pointless. And that should be obvious.<br /><br />But let's look closer anyway.<br /><br />We are to assume: "All formal thinking is determinate." So let me ask, what does "1+1=2" mean? What is "determinate" about it? What does 1 stand for? An apple? An orange? What about x+y=z+1? What does that mean? The truth is, we cannot determine any meaning from mere formal language. Numbers and variables are designed to be replaced with not-so-formal items later in the game. The equation, a^2 + b^2 = c^2, is not determinate in the sense Ross and Feser claim it is. It describes not one triangle, but any triangle. And given that equation, it doesn't necessarily describe triangles at all. It might describe tomorrow's weather for all we know. We humans attach our interpretation to those equations every bit as much as we attach them to the output of calculators. Feser wants us to believe meaningful, "determinate' equations are floating in space. We just reach up an grab them and declare, "Wow, this one means energy and mass are relatively the same! But it doesn't work that way. We create the formal language. It was specifically designed to help find and describe meanings in the physical world Feser finds so indeterminate. He's confused about what a tool is and how we use it. Instead he gives our invention a strange detached and deified status.<br /><br />We are to assume "No physical process is determinate." This merely begs the question. The very thing in question is this: Is formal thinking a physical process? So how can we assume "no physical process is determinate" when we don't yet know if formal thinking is a physical process? We can't. My assumption is that all thinking, including formal thinking, is a physical process. Begging the question is of no help.<br /><br />You would think professional philosophers would be able to see these obvious flaws in their arguments. It's too bad a amateur such as myself has a better grasp on their own subject.<br /><br />donjindrahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09204496435655660609noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7164603649660539619.post-54208500283492469262013-10-09T09:16:50.013-04:002013-10-09T09:16:50.013-04:00Thinking more about your OP - I think you're s...Thinking more about your OP - I think you're spot on. Assuming you've faithfully representing Feser/Ross's argument (still haven't read it), I couldn't agree more: the Problems of Undertermination that they raise are merely epistemic, saying nothing about whether physical processes actually embody pure functions; and it's important to consider what's plausible, not only what's possible.<br /><br />I was focusing on your last comment, which associates them also with physical indeterminism a la QM (not just with undertermination). Hence my above argument. If it isn't included in their work - well, I think they missed a novel argument that they were very close to. <br /><br />Cheers,<br /><br />Yair יאיר רזקhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15798134654972572485noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7164603649660539619.post-82518528291461247782013-10-08T22:12:06.357-04:002013-10-08T22:12:06.357-04:00Do not expect Feser to be consistent.
He is esse...Do not expect Feser to be consistent. <br /><br />He is essentially just an apologist. <br /><br />If X being true suits his purpose today, then of course X is true. But tomorrow X being false is what he wants. So X is false.BeingItselfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13196126096999779200noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7164603649660539619.post-22874250366148279752013-10-08T21:12:08.912-04:002013-10-08T21:12:08.912-04:00Yes, that seems like a sound argument to me. Of co...Yes, that seems like a sound argument to me. Of course, it's an argument within physics, not philosophy. The philosophical aspect is that it implies that no physical system implements classical "pure functions", which are deterministic.<br /><br />Note that one can easily define pure functions that are indeterministic. And in that case a mirror image of the theorem emerges - these cannot be implemented in a deterministic world. But this line of argument can say nothing about implementing deterministic function in a deterministic world or indeterministic functions in indeterministic worlds. <br /><br />Yair<br />יאיר רזקhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15798134654972572485noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7164603649660539619.post-48476099021763221552013-10-08T08:54:15.082-04:002013-10-08T08:54:15.082-04:00I assume you mean " fully deterministic machi...I assume you mean " fully deterministic machines" rather than " fully indeterministic machines". <br /><br />I was thinking about electronic computers, in which the level of discrimination between 0 and 1 is far greater than could be changed by a few extra quantum tunnellings. But I suppose you would say there is still SOME probability, even though it might be very small....<br /><br />I suppose one could try to run a proof along these lines:<br /><br />- Definite eigenstates are an idealization not achievable in the real world.<br /><br />- Apart from definite eigenstates there are only probabilistic outcomes.<br /><br />- Therefore, no physical system is completely deterministic.Robert Oerterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09708981993708509662noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7164603649660539619.post-11060639042813902672013-10-07T20:15:36.024-04:002013-10-07T20:15:36.024-04:00I haven't read Ross, so can't say what he&...I haven't read Ross, so can't say what he's established.<br /><br />My own argument does rely on physical indeterminism such as that of QM. <br /><br />QM makes making <i>fully</i> indeterministic machines.... difficult to construct. Not impossible, but difficult. You basically have to construct everything to work off deterministic variables, such as the total spin (J^2), rather than the spin along a certain direction (J). You can then ignore the physical indeterminism, having isolated yourself from it. This is exceedingly difficult in practice, however, as things like atoms vibrating, gamma rays passing through your machine, and so on are all probabilistic. I don't know if it's really possible to construct or even design a machine that will be fully deterministic.<br /><br />What we're talking about here, however, are thought experiments. Any machine may have a <i>miniscule</i> chance of producing varying results due to quantum indeterminacy. But in practice, this can be so small to be totally negligible. Throw a ball at a wall, and it might have a miniscule chance of tunneling through it by QM; but waiting for this to happen in practice will take much more than the lifetime of the universe. In practice, it's fairly easy to build machines that are so deterministic, they can be treated as ones. Including the machines in our own head, that allow us to think up and discuss deterministic concepts in the first place. That's kinda my point against the argument from reason.<br /><br />(And no apologies needed. It's all good. :) I don't think we've discussed things before, and I'm not too worried about the labels I carry :) )<br /><br />Yairיאיר רזקhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15798134654972572485noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7164603649660539619.post-4572889947720543252013-10-07T15:34:58.911-04:002013-10-07T15:34:58.911-04:00Hi, Yair,
I think your response is a possible rou...Hi, Yair,<br /><br />I think your response is a possible route to take, but I wanted to focus on the fact that Ross hasn't established what he needs for his argument. It's not clear to me if your insistence on indeterminism has anything to do with quantum phenomena. Ross's indeterminism doesn't (he never mentions QM in the article, and has only a passing remark on it in the book.) So I would like to ask you, do you think QM makes deterministic machines impossible?<br /><br />(I don't recall if we've discussed this point before - apologies if we have. Apologies too for mischaracterizing physicalism.)Robert Oerterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09708981993708509662noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7164603649660539619.post-40213666134532862052013-10-07T12:45:33.559-04:002013-10-07T12:45:33.559-04:00Well...
I can't say what Ross or Feser establ...Well...<br /><br />I can't say what Ross or Feser establish (I haven't read the paper). But it does appear to me reasonable and indeed novel to argue that physical indeterminism implies that "there is no such function at all" - that the output isn't produced by some <i>determinate</i> algorithm at all. Since the real "algorithm" that produces the output, the laws of physics, produces variable output while the abstract algorithm does not, it is clearly not the <i>same</i> algorithm that's being run. But equally, it isn't <i>any</i> determinate algorithm. An indeterministic world cannot, in principle, "run" any standard (and therefore, determinate) "pure function" algorithm.<br /><br />It should be noted that this is a variant of the more general Argument from Reason. And that as it relies on indeterminism, its rather more limited in its scope than the more general Argument from Reason (which basically says that you can't implement any algorithm in any mechanistic world, since what you're implementing is the rules of physics rather than the algorithm).<br /><br />My standard response to the argument from reason is that "close enough" is close enough. No, our brains don't <i>really</i>, at the fundamental level, do the function of "adding" or "modus ponens". But they are built so they effectively do, including our thinking about and defining these concepts. This response applies to this argument as well - it doesn't matter that there is a chance to produce a result not in accordance with the pure function, it's still the case that we're effectively running an algorithm that implements it.<br /><br />So - I agree with Feser/Ross that physical systems "are only simulating addition, not truly adding." And I think Ross's argument is novel (to me, at least). I just don't agree with the black and white nature of the Ross/Feser argument. The conclusion should be "To the extent that a physical system is indeterminate, it cannot implement formal thinking". They're missing the (50?) shades of gray.<br /><br />I haven't touched the other points raised in your post, but that I think is the core of it. One more general note - "physicalism" is generally taken to include also things that supervene on the physical, even while not being reducible to it. Thus, in many physicalist theories of mind the mental content supervenes on the physical content - meaning that certain physical structures/dynamics imply certain mental feelings / events - but the mental content is not fully reducible to the physical content, it's a separate thing (how a thing feels like rather than how it behaves, for example). This point is important to me since it means I, as a panpsychist (in the philosophical, not religious, sense) still count as a "physicalist". If you only allow theories of mind that actually reduce the mind to the physical to count - which is usually labeled "materialism", BTW - then I would have to wear a different label. :) <br /><br />Yairיאיר רזקhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15798134654972572485noreply@blogger.com