When Something Serves a Purpose
If to be a "something" is to have a place in the scheme of things (once we've assumed there are schemata to be had), then the consistency with which that something may take its place will signify that being in such a place predictively amounts to at least one purpose (if not the greater purpose) that this something serves., i.e., its schematic need to take that time and place in nature.
Purposes to which these somethings are put? Not necessarily.
Found to fit? More likely.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Could Non-Reason Ever Serve a Purpose?
The universe by virtue of its apparent lawfulness is reasonable - the most probable consequences of its interactions are logically predictable. And yet a strictly determinative universe would have no need for logic or predictability.
Why? Because it seems a system with unregulated cause and effect would be more than just chaotic - there would arguably be no movement at all in a non-regulated and thus non-purposive universe.
Why not? No 'compelling' reason.
Why? Because it seems a system with unregulated cause and effect would be more than just chaotic - there would arguably be no movement at all in a non-regulated and thus non-purposive universe.
Why not? No 'compelling' reason.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
From 'Is' to 'Could' to 'If and Why we Should'
On deriving 'Ought' from 'Is' effectively (from Hume's problem of induction).
And, as we shall see, on 'purpose.'
Baron P said...
Science cannot say what 'ought' to be with anything like precision, but what it can do is predictively determine, from what more accurately 'is,' the more likely parameters as to what 'could' be. The jump from could to should or ought will then be up for grabs. It has always seemed to me that Hume saw 'is or isn't' as somehow equivalent to 'can or can't' and had left the choice of 'could' out of the game plan - and thus saw the jump from is to ought as an essentially bad move. Presenting us with a form of "you can't get there from here" paradox.
February 16, 2011 4:25 PM
Baron P said...
Massimo, you wrote: "But no amount of 'could' can possibly determine your values or the logic of your moral reasoning."
Logic is eliminative as well as determinative (and I'm not talking about eliminative materialism which is inherently illogical). 'Could' is a probability assessment - an attempt to sort out the less probable - to go from could to couldn't or vice versa. We all make those assessments and I don't see how we could survive to, in the end, be moral agents without having made them. I suspect there'd be no science without the necessity to improve the quality of that process. Has our science then brought us to the philosophical point or level where we no longer need to turn to it for improvement? (This is not an argument in support of Harris' thesis - just one that if he felt he could have made, he must not have felt he ought to.)
February 16, 2011 6:08 PM
Baron P said...
Massimo, Bayesian confirmation involves eliminative induction, no?* Choices are 'restricted' to their seemingly more proper places in the range of possibilities. Science, which has helped in that endeavor in the past, might by that measure be asked in future to help alleviate or lighten those restrictions, as we all seem to agree could well be needed. Our logical processes are anticipatory, and we move from is to could to why we should accordingly. I expect/anticipate that science will be a major player in how and why we make our moves.
February 16, 2011 6:44 PM
These excerpts from blog commentary re Hume's problem of induction didn't sit too well with the blog owner (who poo-pooed eliminative logic in particular) or with its coterie of the usual suspects - liberals of the status quo is the best way I know to describe them. A new idea to them is the fine tuning of some last surviving old one. And worse, they are encouraged to have the narrowest view possible of purpose.
So I've happily removed mine from the blog. They'll have neither me nor Nixon to kick around s'more. (OK so I've posted since - nobody's perfect.)
But here's what I would like to have left them with:
Science is a method we developed for a purpose, which was and is to perfect the use of our predictive faculties, our forms of logic. How we could move from 'is' to where we 'ought' to move with a better understanding of why we felt the need to; the need from which we derive/acquire our purposes, which create in turn the need to examine and perfect them. How should we act to achieve those purposes if in factual terms we could.
And the 'how' can't be accomplished as separate from 'why' - 'why' depends on all of the above in combination. There is no linear progression from is to ought, just as there is no purely linear causation in the universe. Our brain, as our science tells us, is a parallel processor - and of what, if not each aspect of our logic.
So that you can get there from here. Life forms have done so successfully for millennia.
And their strategic methodology has given purpose to that which we call science.
*Also see this reference re eliminative induction:
http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/H/James.A.Hawthorne-1/Hawthorne--Bayesian_Induction_IS_Eliminative_Induction.pdf
And, as we shall see, on 'purpose.'
Baron P said...
Science cannot say what 'ought' to be with anything like precision, but what it can do is predictively determine, from what more accurately 'is,' the more likely parameters as to what 'could' be. The jump from could to should or ought will then be up for grabs. It has always seemed to me that Hume saw 'is or isn't' as somehow equivalent to 'can or can't' and had left the choice of 'could' out of the game plan - and thus saw the jump from is to ought as an essentially bad move. Presenting us with a form of "you can't get there from here" paradox.
February 16, 2011 4:25 PM
Baron P said...
Massimo, you wrote: "But no amount of 'could' can possibly determine your values or the logic of your moral reasoning."
Logic is eliminative as well as determinative (and I'm not talking about eliminative materialism which is inherently illogical). 'Could' is a probability assessment - an attempt to sort out the less probable - to go from could to couldn't or vice versa. We all make those assessments and I don't see how we could survive to, in the end, be moral agents without having made them. I suspect there'd be no science without the necessity to improve the quality of that process. Has our science then brought us to the philosophical point or level where we no longer need to turn to it for improvement? (This is not an argument in support of Harris' thesis - just one that if he felt he could have made, he must not have felt he ought to.)
February 16, 2011 6:08 PM
Baron P said...
Massimo, Bayesian confirmation involves eliminative induction, no?* Choices are 'restricted' to their seemingly more proper places in the range of possibilities. Science, which has helped in that endeavor in the past, might by that measure be asked in future to help alleviate or lighten those restrictions, as we all seem to agree could well be needed. Our logical processes are anticipatory, and we move from is to could to why we should accordingly. I expect/anticipate that science will be a major player in how and why we make our moves.
February 16, 2011 6:44 PM
These excerpts from blog commentary re Hume's problem of induction didn't sit too well with the blog owner (who poo-pooed eliminative logic in particular) or with its coterie of the usual suspects - liberals of the status quo is the best way I know to describe them. A new idea to them is the fine tuning of some last surviving old one. And worse, they are encouraged to have the narrowest view possible of purpose.
So I've happily removed mine from the blog. They'll have neither me nor Nixon to kick around s'more. (OK so I've posted since - nobody's perfect.)
But here's what I would like to have left them with:
Science is a method we developed for a purpose, which was and is to perfect the use of our predictive faculties, our forms of logic. How we could move from 'is' to where we 'ought' to move with a better understanding of why we felt the need to; the need from which we derive/acquire our purposes, which create in turn the need to examine and perfect them. How should we act to achieve those purposes if in factual terms we could.
And the 'how' can't be accomplished as separate from 'why' - 'why' depends on all of the above in combination. There is no linear progression from is to ought, just as there is no purely linear causation in the universe. Our brain, as our science tells us, is a parallel processor - and of what, if not each aspect of our logic.
So that you can get there from here. Life forms have done so successfully for millennia.
And their strategic methodology has given purpose to that which we call science.
*Also see this reference re eliminative induction:
http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/H/James.A.Hawthorne-1/Hawthorne--Bayesian_Induction_IS_Eliminative_Induction.pdf
Friday, October 29, 2010
Determine this
I was reminded today of the following fundamental tenet of quantum mechanics: Events at the level of fundamental particles do not have causes. If so, at least in our universe, such events can neither be determined in advance, nor can they have been predetermined by some heretofore supernatural force or forcer. Determination of any sort being, of course, causative.
Predetermination on the macro level will at best determine some measure of probability, such measure decreasing exponentially over time. At least if that's the present state of particle affairs in this particular world. On the micro level we start with 50/50 odds, and conceivably it's 50/50 all the way down. (Or not.)
Not much chance here for omnipotence or omniscience, whether you'd like your God to be a creator or just prefer to see the universe as intrinsically intelligent, all by its lonesome.
One caveat as to fundamental particles not having causes: If they exist at all to serve a strategic function that permits nature to evolve, with randomness a necessity for that function, then in effect they have a strategic role to play, and have been "caused" to play it.
Predetermination on the macro level will at best determine some measure of probability, such measure decreasing exponentially over time. At least if that's the present state of particle affairs in this particular world. On the micro level we start with 50/50 odds, and conceivably it's 50/50 all the way down. (Or not.)
Not much chance here for omnipotence or omniscience, whether you'd like your God to be a creator or just prefer to see the universe as intrinsically intelligent, all by its lonesome.
One caveat as to fundamental particles not having causes: If they exist at all to serve a strategic function that permits nature to evolve, with randomness a necessity for that function, then in effect they have a strategic role to play, and have been "caused" to play it.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
No purpose, no responsibility
(Prompted in part by reactions to an 'experimental philosophy' paper on Moral Responsibility and Determinism.)
We are choice makers by default. Unless we can turn off our unconscious (i.e., emotional) processes entirely, we cannot react with logical consistency to any assumption that in the end there's no such thing as choice, where we would also feel required to assume that choices are part of that deterministic world, yet at the same time be functionally illusory.
Our underlying "theories" are based on instinctive assumptions that all things (living or not) that act against our interests do so with some element of intent. Some seek to be trusted, some seek to violate that trust, some seek primarily to harm or eat us with any "trust" relationship being secondary to that. It's all about some aspect of trust, and trust would not come into existence in a determinate world. Everything there would already be in a permanent state of neutrality, no trust required, since there would be no contrasting distrust.
We can't deal instinctively or intuitively with a "logical" assumption that trust is not to be considered.
We also can't set up an "experiment" where we "accept" that people in a determinate universe would nevertheless act as if they had the right to choose. We "know" instinctively that such a universe would contain no such behaviors without the illusion of indeterminacy being a permanent part of that world. In which case we would act toward others accordingly, continuing to punish them as the illusion requires.
Cultural differences cannot in the end erase these instincts, only channel the ways that we choose to apply consequences. We can't be barred from choosing that some consequences are applicable.
This does not require us to have anything like an innate ‘moral responsibility module.’ We have an innate responsibility strategy that is archetypical.
And any differences that divide us into compatibilists versus incompatibilists (a false dichotomy in any case) are in themselves strategic responses based on our pecking orders, learned tactics, cultural differences, etc.
We don't have "compatibilist" intuitions as opposed to "incompatibilst" ones. We are basically incompatibilists by "nature" - we function probabilistically with an overlay of logically abstract certainties as to the inevitability of fate.
We act as if to outsmart nature for the short term, "knowing" it will outsmart us for the long term.
We are choice makers by default. Unless we can turn off our unconscious (i.e., emotional) processes entirely, we cannot react with logical consistency to any assumption that in the end there's no such thing as choice, where we would also feel required to assume that choices are part of that deterministic world, yet at the same time be functionally illusory.
Our underlying "theories" are based on instinctive assumptions that all things (living or not) that act against our interests do so with some element of intent. Some seek to be trusted, some seek to violate that trust, some seek primarily to harm or eat us with any "trust" relationship being secondary to that. It's all about some aspect of trust, and trust would not come into existence in a determinate world. Everything there would already be in a permanent state of neutrality, no trust required, since there would be no contrasting distrust.
We can't deal instinctively or intuitively with a "logical" assumption that trust is not to be considered.
We also can't set up an "experiment" where we "accept" that people in a determinate universe would nevertheless act as if they had the right to choose. We "know" instinctively that such a universe would contain no such behaviors without the illusion of indeterminacy being a permanent part of that world. In which case we would act toward others accordingly, continuing to punish them as the illusion requires.
Cultural differences cannot in the end erase these instincts, only channel the ways that we choose to apply consequences. We can't be barred from choosing that some consequences are applicable.
This does not require us to have anything like an innate ‘moral responsibility module.’ We have an innate responsibility strategy that is archetypical.
And any differences that divide us into compatibilists versus incompatibilists (a false dichotomy in any case) are in themselves strategic responses based on our pecking orders, learned tactics, cultural differences, etc.
We don't have "compatibilist" intuitions as opposed to "incompatibilst" ones. We are basically incompatibilists by "nature" - we function probabilistically with an overlay of logically abstract certainties as to the inevitability of fate.
We act as if to outsmart nature for the short term, "knowing" it will outsmart us for the long term.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Experience drives the evolution of strategies which apply that knowledge to the evolution of their forms.
An archetypical biological strategy, defensive or aggressive, would require the entity to equip itself with a limited array of varied or variable forms - the equivalent of tactical restructuring according to anticipated needs. The initial experiences from which it developed strategies had to give rise to expectations of environmental change as well - those prospects limited of course by the history of its species' cumulative experiences.
Thus the strategy that can "choose" a more effective form won't have to engineer a new version on the spot if there's an appropriate one already in the bank. It won't require that long, long wait for a chance mutation either. Which doesn't preclude such events from happening - but nevertheless these strategies, if any good at all, will have provided other options for themselves as a consequence of their own evolvement.
(I'm reminded that Hermit Crabs choose empty shells as protective structures - and the shells weren't there for the expectant purpose of being chosen by a crab. But of course this could be consistent with either of the rules in play here. Except we see that strategies are essentially opportunists.)
So if it looks to neo-Darwinists that the accidentally acquired longer neck of the Giraffe gave an advantage to an existing strategy for eating leaves, and that strategy adapted itself to the new neck, that might ( theoretically) have happened. Except the mistake has been to rule out other roads the adaptive process could have taken. Such as the one I recommend above.
And we are already learning that there are preadaptive elements in our genomes that may be there for just that purpose - to avoid the wait for randomness to make a structural alteration that can (and not just theoretically) be arranged in advance in anticipation of its future usefulness.
(Certainly these variations were in wolves that dog breeders used to form new varieties of dogs, fitting the breeder's strategic goals to wolf/dog primary strategies in the process. Manufacturing "learned" behaviors that, voila, became almost immediately heritable! And don't tell me the wolf was always man's best friend somewhere within its backup planning).
Aphorism of the day: Experience drives the evolution of strategies which apply new "knowledge" to the evolution of their forms.
Thus the strategy that can "choose" a more effective form won't have to engineer a new version on the spot if there's an appropriate one already in the bank. It won't require that long, long wait for a chance mutation either. Which doesn't preclude such events from happening - but nevertheless these strategies, if any good at all, will have provided other options for themselves as a consequence of their own evolvement.
(I'm reminded that Hermit Crabs choose empty shells as protective structures - and the shells weren't there for the expectant purpose of being chosen by a crab. But of course this could be consistent with either of the rules in play here. Except we see that strategies are essentially opportunists.)
So if it looks to neo-Darwinists that the accidentally acquired longer neck of the Giraffe gave an advantage to an existing strategy for eating leaves, and that strategy adapted itself to the new neck, that might ( theoretically) have happened. Except the mistake has been to rule out other roads the adaptive process could have taken. Such as the one I recommend above.
And we are already learning that there are preadaptive elements in our genomes that may be there for just that purpose - to avoid the wait for randomness to make a structural alteration that can (and not just theoretically) be arranged in advance in anticipation of its future usefulness.
(Certainly these variations were in wolves that dog breeders used to form new varieties of dogs, fitting the breeder's strategic goals to wolf/dog primary strategies in the process. Manufacturing "learned" behaviors that, voila, became almost immediately heritable! And don't tell me the wolf was always man's best friend somewhere within its backup planning).
Aphorism of the day: Experience drives the evolution of strategies which apply new "knowledge" to the evolution of their forms.
Monday, October 18, 2010
How instinctive strategies have evolved
Excerpt from: Stomatopod Deceptive Use of Reputation, Roy L Caldwell, In: Deception: Perspectives on Human and Non-Human Deceit. R. W. Mitchell and N. S. Thompson, eds., State University of New York Press, pp. 129-145.
"The use of reputation and bluff in stomatopods should not be viewed as conscious acts. Rather, they are the product of natural selection operating on probabilities of performance and response. The selective equation has balanced over many generations the costs and benefits of generating, as well as accepting or discounting, signals that correlate with the probable outcome of a contest. The resulting product is further tuned by experience and by the degree to which information so derived is available and accurate.
I hope that by demonstrating the occurrence of such supposedly complex mechanisms as reputation and bluff in relatively simple animals such as stomatopods, I can suggest the existence of similar processes producing "deceptive" interactions in more sophisticated animals whose sensory and integrative capacities make objective analysis much more difficult."
My comment: Note how the writer avoids direct reference to the heritability of the lessons of experience, yet at the same time lays out fairly clearly how it leads to to the evolvement of non-conscious strategizing in a species.
Excerpt from: A 21st Century View of Evolution,
James A. Shapiro
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology,
University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637
"Molecular genetics has amply confirmed McClintock's discovery that living organisms actively reorganize their genomes (5). It has also supported her view that the genome can "sense danger" and respond accordingly (56). The recognition of the fundamentally biological nature of genetic change and of cellular potentials for information processing frees our thinking about evolution. In particular, our conceptual formulations are no longer dependent on the operation of stochastic processes. Thus, we can now envision a role for computational inputs and adaptive feedbacks into the evolution of life as a complex system. Indeed, it is possible that we will eventually see such information-processing capabilities as essential to life itself."
My comment: To "sense danger" equates to a suspicion of potential harm. We can see how the necessity for a strategic response has evolved in the complex strategies of "deceptive interactions" employed by the stomatopods. So did the strategies produce the forms, or the forms select the strategies? The answer should be obvious.
"The use of reputation and bluff in stomatopods should not be viewed as conscious acts. Rather, they are the product of natural selection operating on probabilities of performance and response. The selective equation has balanced over many generations the costs and benefits of generating, as well as accepting or discounting, signals that correlate with the probable outcome of a contest. The resulting product is further tuned by experience and by the degree to which information so derived is available and accurate.
I hope that by demonstrating the occurrence of such supposedly complex mechanisms as reputation and bluff in relatively simple animals such as stomatopods, I can suggest the existence of similar processes producing "deceptive" interactions in more sophisticated animals whose sensory and integrative capacities make objective analysis much more difficult."
My comment: Note how the writer avoids direct reference to the heritability of the lessons of experience, yet at the same time lays out fairly clearly how it leads to to the evolvement of non-conscious strategizing in a species.
Excerpt from: A 21st Century View of Evolution,
James A. Shapiro
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology,
University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637
"Molecular genetics has amply confirmed McClintock's discovery that living organisms actively reorganize their genomes (5). It has also supported her view that the genome can "sense danger" and respond accordingly (56). The recognition of the fundamentally biological nature of genetic change and of cellular potentials for information processing frees our thinking about evolution. In particular, our conceptual formulations are no longer dependent on the operation of stochastic processes. Thus, we can now envision a role for computational inputs and adaptive feedbacks into the evolution of life as a complex system. Indeed, it is possible that we will eventually see such information-processing capabilities as essential to life itself."
My comment: To "sense danger" equates to a suspicion of potential harm. We can see how the necessity for a strategic response has evolved in the complex strategies of "deceptive interactions" employed by the stomatopods. So did the strategies produce the forms, or the forms select the strategies? The answer should be obvious.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)