RoR: Forum

Merlin,

I will answer you.

Of course, there is no concept or identification of logic without a consciousness.

That is the best starting place. Also, there is no consciousness without an organic brain - one that lives and dies.

There is a general complaint on this thread that axiomatic concepts need to be more than they are - that they are too simple. But being simple is their nature. Those who do not like such simplicity try to deride it with big words and talk horseshit all over the place, as if simplicity were somehow a flaw.

I agree, as you state, that there is logic in reality. We use it. It is an attribute of consciousness. That does not mean that the universe is constructed logically (like a logical God would have done), but that in the emergence of the human being, a faculty came about that was able to isolate similarities and differences and integrate tags for them which we call concepts.

Should another form of awareness in other life forms based on other types of stimuli than our five senses come about, it would reflect the parts that it bumps into. But existence and identity would have to be the starting condition of that, also.

Logic came up from simple beginnings. It always boils down to simple premises.

The universe does not boil down to logic. Logic boils down to being one small part of all that exists.

It's awfully hard to show off when you are simple and say something true that even a child can understand. That's about the closest I can come to seeing what can be gained by denying axiomatic concepts or deriding their importance.

But there it is.

Now where did it all come from? I don't know. Why answer what you don't know? And why on earth make fun of what you do know?

Gotta keep looking, not show off.

Michael

Post 141

Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 3:58pm

Merlin,

Thanks for your post. I wasn't in the mood to go in that direction with MSK (though that position is implicit in my posts) partly because I'm sympathetic to both positions (logic with and logic without metaphysics) but if you're up to it, go for it.

It's just sad that some individuals (MSK in this instance) think that holding this or that position is evil without understanding why individuals are driven to those positions in the first place and understanding the benefits and costs of both positions.

Laj.

Post 142

Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 4:01pm

Is it just me or was MSK's last post the biggest pile of horsecrap yet on SOLO?

Daniel,

It's incredible. He holds that existence exists is inescapable, but refuses to grant logic any ontological importance.

Laj.

Post 143

Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 4:08pm

Michael,

“Logic boils down to being one small part of all that exists.”

On another thread a few weeks ago you were insisting that a non-physical existent was nonsense. In fact, I recall that you L’edOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!
about it.

Now you say that logic exists—so is it physical, abstract, or something else entirely?

Jon

Post 144

Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 4:55pm

Merlin writes:
>Of course, there is no concept or identification of logic without a consciousness. But that does not imply there is no logic in reality to identify.

I think you've summarised the classic Objectivist position nicely here. But I don't know what to make of MSK's reply that there is logic in reality - but at the same time the universe is not logically constructed? Also that logic is an "attribute of consciousness" that the universe does not necessarily share? This was Ayn Rand's view? I doubt it.

He seems to be making competing and even contrary claims simultaneously, none of which reflect the standard Objectivist position. So I suggest it is merely a case of his arguments, rather than the universe, not being logically constructed...;-)

Laj writes:
>Is it just me or was MSK's last post the biggest pile of horsecrap yet on SOLO?

Clearly it is not just you.

- Daniel

Post 145

Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 5:51pm

Jon,

It took me a long time and rebutting a whole lot of horseshit to get to the point of some of the normal muddiers of the epistemological waters (the perennial slippery fishies) to admit that a consciousness depends on a physical brain. (I haven't got them to admit that a brain must be in a living organism yet, but maybe someday...) And then that was only under the possibility of them being branded unequivocally as advocates of primacy-of-consciousness, which even they admit is untenable. (Indirectly their arguments still boil down to primacy-of-consciousness, but it gets hidden under a lot of big words and logical circles and is a variation of the traditional one, so apparently it is more acceptable to them.)

But let's look at "non-physical" existents, which is a contradiction if divorced from physical reality. Notice that relationships, for example, always go back to physical existents. The same goes for actions and attributes. Logic is always in a physical brain that has a conceptual faculty. When something does an act, it is always something physical that does it. When there is an attribute, it always is an attribute of a physical entity, or it ends up boiling down to something that the physical entity does, or of a relationship between physical entities. (For example, an attribute of an action caused by an action caused by a relationship between one physical entity and another.) Connect the logical chain dots with that magnificent logical instrument in your own skull and you arrive at concrete entities - always. Hell, even space and time mean nothing divorced from physical existence.

This could go on all day and night, but it always boils down to physical existence. To use another quote from Ayn Rand on the same page of ITOE as the one Adam Reed mentioned, "An existent is a concrete."

It was the metaphysical status of there being a "non-physical" existence independent of physical existence that I was arguing. At that time, consciousness as a nonphysical existent was being proposed with the only alternative given being a false dichotomy - determinism of known physical laws. Pure horseshit. I still postulate that consciousness is physical. Take a dose of very physical LSD and see what it does to your "non-physical" consciousness. Now there's more horseshit - the "metaphysical logic" independent of consciousness now before us.

Logic exists as an activity of a conceptual brain. Inside a conceptual brain it exists. That is the metaphysical fact. Outside of a brain, logic does not exist. Nothing more, but nothing less either.

If you have this itch to call me to task, talk about that undeveloped conceptual faculty as opposed to the adult one that I discussed. I was admittedly a bit fuzzy there and need to clarify a few things. But that is off-topic right at the moment.

I am totally against projecting a manner of thinking up against the universe and saying that the universe is what needs to conform to the idea. (We only know that part of the universe we can ultimately boil down to our five senses anyway - at least for now.)

I am totally against belittling those who state that our conceptual mind based on sensory input is the awareness faculty used to understand reality for being too simplistic precisely because they state this. Let me get simpler. I am totally against demeaning as person for saying that existence exists and that we have a mind that knows it. And I am totally against postulating piles of horseshit in order to drop names and belittle great thinkers.

I personally want to understand the universe correctly to the best of my ability, not try to teach others what I do not know as if such were miraculously a fact and then pretend and posture that I know more than a great thinker like Ayn Rand on a fundamental issue - including the grotesque strutting about that I usually witness.

As I mentioned before, my posts on epistemology with these dudes are not for the benefit of such slippery fishies (maybe with the exception of Brendan - for now anyway). They are for me, to start with, to verify that I cannot be taken in by intellectual con-men, and then they are to let other readers know that the smell they are experiencing actually is horseshit and that others smell it too.

This is an Objectivist website and you cannot argue the invalidity of a fundamental issue like axiomatic concepts without undercutting the whole kit and caboodle. Now the flavor is being changed to "insignificance" or "lack of importance" instead of "invalidity." Same horseshit, though.

I will give you that this is an unpleasant garbage detail, but I chose to do it. I will not let garbage infect the pure fundamental waters of Objectivism without a fight. At the time I jumped in, horseshit was overrunning all discussions on epistemology on Solo. Now a decent idea or two manages to get through without being deluged by mountains of horseshit.

Michael

Post 146

Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 5:56pm

I will give you that this is an unpleasant garbage detail, but I chose to do it. I will not let garbage infect the pure fundamental waters of Objectivism without a fight. At the time I jumped in, horseshit was overrunning all discussions on epistemology on Solo. Now a decent idea or two manages to get through without being deluged by mountains of horseshit.

Thank you for summing up why I stay away from epistemology discussions here.

---Landon

Post 147

Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 6:18pm

MSK:
>It took me a long time and rebutting a whole lot of horseshit to get to the point of some of the normal muddiers of the epistemological waters (the perennial slippery fishies) to admit that a consciousness depends on a physical brain...

Wow. Can anyone actually *believe* MSK is back to this fantasy narrative? There is a psychological point, I suppose, where compulsive fibbers start to believe their own fibs, and here is a prime example.

The man seems to genuinely believe that through his persistent and brilliant arguments, he made me "admit" something that I had always argued for! Weirder yet, he actually *knows* that I have argued for it, and he even produced evidence of me doing so!

It's hard to know how to respond to bordering-on-delusional stuff. It's getting beyond mere fibbing, and into the realm of I don't know what.

- Daniel

Post 148

Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 6:24pm

Michael, all...

I understand your opposition to the idea that logic is somehow in the world, and I agree. It even sounds somewhat fishy to say that the world is logically structured, for this suggests that someone logically structured it.

However, how do you handle the standard Aristotelian and Objectivist claim that the Laws of Logic are the Laws of Reality -- and, in fact, that the Laws of Logic are true of logic because, more fundamentally, they are true of reality?

A logical process is how thought conforms to reality, so it seems reasonable to suppose that this is so because the Laws of Logic reflect the lawful structure of Existence. If they didn't, they wouldn't work!

REB

Post 149

Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 6:25pm

Michael,

Here’s another example.

In this thread:
http://solohq.com/Forum/GeneralForum/0454.shtml

In post 68, I wrote: ““The actions inside a brain are physical; the mental phenomena (consciousness as such) produced by those actions are (is) not.”

You wrote, in post 76: “When a physical brain dies, the consciousness inside it dies too. Thus consciousness must be physical.”

Then you went on and on, as you have for months, about the silliness of non-physical consciousness/existents.

Then, you wrote, post 8, in this thread:
http://solohq.com/Forum/ArticleDiscussions/1372.shtml

“Kevin,

You just made one hell of an observation that aligns a great deal with my own thinking.

‘Consciousness would seem to be a product of certain physical matter but not matter in itself.’

As to the Objectivist view on whether consciousness is a physical thing or not, I don't think the answer has been resolved to satisfaction.

My own thinking is really close to what you stated, except with certain observations. I will write an article on this very shortly.

Meanwhile, congratulations on a very good independent manner of thinking and asking the right questions. (I intend to use this quote, also, if you don't mind.)”

Now, just now, you wrote: “I still postulate that consciousness is physical.”

You may simply be writing too much and getting sloppy, forgetting what your positions are. Slow down a bit. I do look forward to that article.

Jon

Post 150

Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 7:06pm

Jon,

You might be right about writing too much too quickly. In my defense, there are very few on my side who have the patience to engage these posters and they produce a huge amount of horseshit. There's simply too much to go slower.

However I do postulate that consciousness is physical. In Kevin's quote, he mentioned that consciousness is a product of matter, not matter in itself.

Where this hits the mark with me is not that I think of consciousness as a process like an action, or an attribute or relationship (which I suppose my own words seemed to imply - sorry about that). Ayn Rand used the phrase "mental event," and this also hits the mark. Where I do not contradict this, but add to it instead, is with my proposal that consciousness is an actual physical existent that has a physical relationship with neurons, but the physical nature of this stuff is simply not known yet. That is why it is referred to as a "product" or "event" by them and others.

Rand's and Kevin's words imply that they are talking about the same primacy-of-consciousness horseshit that you are seeing argued now. They are not, but their words are similar enough to seem that way.

So Kevin's "product of matter" would become "interaction between known matter and this new stuff." Rand's "mental event" would stay the same, but it would be understood as this consciousness "stuff" doing it with neurons. (That's part of what is sketched for the article.)

Somewhat akin to the relationship between microwaves and air molecules. A couple of centuries ago the existence of broadcasting microwaves was not anything practical, yet today the entire global communications industry revolves around it. Do microwaves exist physically? Sure. Did they back then? Yup. Were they widely known? Nope. They are things that we cannot see, hear, touch, taste or smell. They needed to be put into a form so that we could experience them enough through sight, sound and touch to manipulate them and build things with them before the communications industry could become a reality.

I suppose there were the "non-physical" mystics at the time microwave broadcasting did not exist mouthing off and dropping names all over the place. Still, reason won out and the descendants of these mental missing links talk on cell phones and watch TV today.

I predict that reason will win out on the physical consciousness issue in a very similar manner. Just recently we have seen DNA mapping and manipulation and stem cell research. It's coming, life in the laboratory is coming, and - by the grace of reason and capitalism - nothing the old-boy club of name-droppers or mystics can do any longer will be able to stop it. They can try for smoke-screens, like these horseshit epistemological discussions, but it is coming anyway.

I also predict that science will bear out the fundamentals of Ayn Rand's philosophy, despite the bleating of any loud mouthed intellectual midget.

Michael
(Edited by Michael Stuart Kelly on 8/31, 7:10pm)

(Edited by Michael Stuart Kelly on 8/31, 7:32pm)

Post 151

Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 8:03pm

Daniel,

I'm picking nits here, but I find inescapable is the idea that existence exists...and is something...that I'm aware of. What I find escapable is the idea that existence is external to consciousness. If Rand found 'existence external to consciousness' inescapable and axiomatic, then I'd think she made a mistake. In any case, despite its escapability, I still accept it.

Jordan

Post 152

Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 8:11pm

Jordan writes
>In any case, despite its escapability, I still accept it.

Well, that's cool with me, I accept that physical existence is external to consciousness too. I don't demand "inescapability" as a criteria for accepting beliefs, so naturally I wouldn't demand it of you....;-)

- Daniel

Post 153

Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 8:35pm

Roger,

Your post almost passed me by. I do not deny that there are consistent things in the universe we focus on and from which our logical faculty develops. I would not call these things logical, though. I would call them consistent or some other term that does not allow the present epistemological confusion - and I would confine logic simply to being an activity of the mind. In this instance, "law" is a good term for consistency. However, even this connotes logic enough to cause confusion.

As I keep stating, existence is bigger than us. We fall within it, it does not fall within our "logic." Our logic is simply one form of awareness that is constantly growing and improving. The consistency of the things in the universe is not. Such consistency as can be perceived is absolute for all time and all places. The logical perception of any one consciousness is not absolute for all time and all places as it depends on a living organism, which eventually dies.

Let's use Objectivist jargon. The metaphysical (in the ontological sense) nature of existence is absolute and is independent of consciousness. It includes existence and identity (and all other general aspects like space, time, attributes, etc.) These things are consistent and absolute. One special type of existent, life, gives rise to another "thing that exists," which is awareness of what exists. This is an activity of physical life.

For human beings, the epistemological nature of how to perceive existence is absolute and it is based on five senses and a mental integrating faculty. Any one specific act of such awareness is not absolute, however. It occurs within a metaphysical context, which is made up of many things, including the good health and proper functioning of the awareness faculty (basically a brain, which the horseshitters call a lump of meat).

But anyway, all this is interesting, but it is not what the horseshitters are getting at. Read their posts more closely. They are claiming that axiomatic concepts, from which all Objectivist logic derives, are invalid or are insignificant. They are claiming that "existence exists" is theory laden, simplistic or whatever, and are not the foundation on which to build concepts.

In other words, they are opening the door to claim other "realities" and a host of other goodies that derive from trying to hair-split essentials into contradictions. You take it from there.

It sounds like they are endorsing reason, but they are actually proposing something vastly different, based on something other than axiomatic concepts. It just sounds good on first hearing and they vary a lot among themselves in wording. But one thing in common is shared.

They are all claiming to be greater experts on epistemological fundamentals than Ayn Rand.

I wouldn't mind if they were right, but they aren't. Just horseshitting.

Why I jumped in a while back was that when anyone stated something like "existence exists," he/she would be deluged with a barrage of posts all talking in circles and trying to discredit Ayn Rand - all from the same small group.

Michael

Post 154

Thursday, September 1, 2005 - 3:02am

Michael: “How on earth …can ‘some things exist’ if existence does not?

So is existence one thing, or many things?

Brendan

Post 155

Thursday, September 1, 2005 - 3:07am

Jordan: “Do chairs exist in my bathtub? I observe, and nope. Chairs in my bathtub don't exist.”

So how do you know that the missing articles are chairs? Surely it’s because you already know what chairs are, by previous observation of actual chairs. In that case, in order to observe the absence of non-existing stuff, you need a concept of non-existing stuff. So remind me what you observe to form that concept?

Jordan: “It compels us to accept (1) that thoughts exist, which means existence exists (existence axiom), (2) that thoughts exists, which means something exists (identity axiom), and (3) that having the thought exists, which means consciousness exists (the consciousness axiom). Do you accept this?

Of course not. Omit the italics and what do you get: (1) that thoughts exist…(2) that thoughts exist…” Same premise, different conclusions. Something’s wrong here. Look again at your argument (1). The existence of thoughts imply the act of thinking, which implies a thinker. You're not implying that existence is a thinker, are you? This topic was covered in my post 13 (not 37), to which you replied, so we’re going over old ground.

“Rand continues that "to be conscious is to be conscious of something," by which I think she means something that's not the consciousness.”

Yes. Back to the original quote: “Existence exists—and the act of grasping that statement implies two corollary axioms…” The two “corollary axioms” are of course something that one perceives and consciousness. So there’s the same problem: one set of premises, two conclusions.

“This theory also entails an existence external to consciousness, something I don't think we can deduce from the axioms. If this is what you're getting at, then okay. But I doubt it's what you're getting at.”

That’s one of the things I’m getting at, as I mentioned in post 16, which you also replied to. You’re not finding this sort of stuff too taxing are you? I’ll understand if you want to have a lie down.

Brendan

Post 156

Thursday, September 1, 2005 - 3:09am

MSK,

Your post almost passed me by. I do not deny that there are consistent things in the universe we focus on and from which our logical faculty develops. I would not call these things logical, though. I would call them consistent or some other term that does not allow the present epistemological confusion - and I would confine logic simply to being an activity of the mind. In this instance, "law" is a good term for consistency. However, even this connotes logic enough to cause confusion.

I think everyone can see that the confusion is purely yours.

Everyone,

I repeat for the record:

Rand and Aristotle both tied existence to identity and causality.

When I wrote that, I presumed that MSK would know what was the Objectivist position on the ontology of the Laws of Logic.

Of course, MSK took that to mean that I was claiming that Rand placed existence, identity and causality on the same level and some other unimportant nonsense- I think he get's Rand's point about existence and identity totally wrong (read OPAR - Rand thought that existence is identity and that logic, or some element of logic, is a part of existence) - but I need to stay on track...

I wrote later that:

The fine line between calling reality "logical" or "ordered" and calling reality susceptible to rational analysis is so thin that if that is your primary point, your reasons for not admitting that I ceded that a long time ago are otiose.

But no, that couldn't make MSK rethink his delusions of grandeur.

Then Merlin states what I was getting at:

I offer an alternative view. Logic, like identity, is an attribute of reality. It is objective, indeed the very standard of objectivity. Consider for a moment runner X in a race. He has either crossed the finish line or he hasn't. In other words, A or not-A. You might reply there is a borderline case when X's body is right over the finish line. Regardless, the timer for X in this race or a judge of it must decide exactly when X crosses the finish line. In other words, there is an instance of the Law of Excluded Middle. Also, X cannot be both past and not past the finish line at the same time. In other words, there is an instance of the Law of Noncontradiction.

Of course, there is no concept or identification of logic without a consciousness. But that does not imply there is no logic in reality to identify.

And let's look at Roger Bissell:

However, how do you handle the standard Aristotelian and Objectivist claim that the Laws of Logic are the Laws of Reality -- and, in fact, that the Laws of Logic are true of logic because, more fundamentally, they are true of reality?

Roger E. Bissell and Merlin Jetton restate an argument that I had told MSK was Objectivist and Aristotleian and I've not heard MSK launch his charming smarmy garbage in their direction (though the quality of his response to their arguments tells me that he does not fully understand the position that he is defending or know what the alternatives are).

MSK then writes:

Let's use Objectivist jargon. The metaphysical (in the ontological sense) nature of existence is absolute and is independent of consciousness. It includes existence and identity (and all other general aspects like space, time, attributes, etc.) These things are consistent and absolute. One special type of existent, life, gives rise to another "thing that exists," which is awareness of what exists. This is an activity of physical life.

Did my eyes deceive me? Isn't this the standard Objectivist position with some words changed, something I brought up a long time ago?

Distinguishing between reality and our apprehension of reality is necessary but in many cases difficult. When I asked the question earlier:

If all animals were deaf, would sounds exist?

I was playing upon the equivocation between the sound we hear and the sound (waves) that scientists study. I suppose that science crashing down because scientists speak of the speed of sound which we cannot hear!

I now realize that MSK just isn't equipped to understand anything that I write. Obviously, we need Objectivists to restate my arguments for MSK to grasp them.

Of course, MSK returns with his usual garbage about "discrediting" Rand. Of course, I "discredit" Dennett, Popper, Blanshard and loads of philosophers I like all the time. Unlike MSK, I have no religious devotion to this or that philosopher.

MSK,

The confusion is purely yours.

Laj.

Post 157

Thursday, September 1, 2005 - 4:10am

MSK—don't allow yourself to be wound up by pseuds, one of whom is yet another coward posting under a phony name, & their pretentious word-games. I usually refrain from participating in these threads precisely because they are the domain of pseuds. But I hate to see you being played with. There's no need for lengthy treatises here. Logic is not intrinsic to reality. Logic is the human method, the epistemological tool, by which we grasp reality. It is not a reality-intrinsic, metaphysical entity. Reality is not "logical"—it simply is. Logic, applied to empirical concretes, is our way of identifying it.

No biggie, but pseuds will tie you up in knots about it if you let them. Don't!

Linz

Post 158

Thursday, September 1, 2005 - 6:26am

To MSK and Linz and anybody else who agrees that "reality is not logical", I suggest they read page 263 (hb) of the Lexicon, subject Logic, from "Philosophical Detection."

Post 159

Thursday, September 1, 2005 - 7:24am