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Post 60

Friday, February 1, 2008 - 2:27pmSanction this postReply
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There is no problem in connecting any mathematical fact to reality, as long as one is very careful in specifying the aspect of reality it refers to. The completeness that Rand and set theory respectively invoke are obviously two different things.


Post 61

Friday, February 1, 2008 - 2:41pmSanction this postReply
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I wrote, I didn't simply define it (arbitrarily) in such a way that a contradiction follows. I pointed out its necessary preconditions, which are that it requires a particular form and means of awareness." Claude replied,
First you claimed to define consciousness; now, you claim that you weren’t really defining it, but rather “pointing out its necessary precondition”…which is not the same thing as a definition. It matters little; for what you have done here, as well as in the Evolution thread, is merely to describe consciousness (you will probably try to justify this practice by claiming that a mere description is really a higher-status thing – an “ostensive definition”!).
When I said that consciousness requires sense organs and a brain, I was not claiming to "define" consciousness. YOU accused me of "defining" it and of defining it arbitrarily. You said, "You merely define consciousness in such a way that a contradiction follows if we assert its independent existence. Big deal." My reply was that I wasn't defining it arbitrarily, but was identifying its biological requirements, which is true. Then you say,
A description is not the same as a definition. As for “necessary preconditions”, that could only happen if we move beyond a mere description (even if that mere description is given a deep-dish, high-falutin’ name like “ostensive definition).”
Spare me the sarcasm. The term “ostensive definition" refers to something that you can’t identify without direct experience. For example, what pain feels like can only be known “ostensively.” You have to experience it to know what it feels like. “Ostensive” is a term in the Objectivist lexicon, which I thought you were familiar with, since you seemed to have some familiarity with other aspects of the philosophy. Sorry for using it, if it confused you. I wasn’t trying to be “high-falutin.” The important point I was making, which you don’t seem to be grasping, despite my having stated it over and over, is that consciousness requires a particular FORM of awareness, which in turn requires a MEANS of awareness. You’re not getting this. Stop and think about it for a minute. Any state of awareness that you can imagine has a particular form – visual, auditory, tactile, etc. It HAS to have such a form; otherwise it wouldn’t exist. But the particular form of awareness is a function of an organism’s sensory receptor(s). The kind of receptors an organism has determines the form in which it perceives the external world. Of course, human beings (and I suspect other animals) have dreams that are not perceptions of reality, but the content of these dreams takes the same form as the character of their perceptions.
We know that consciousness and biological organisms accompany each other; no one knows anything beyond that: no one knows HOW . . .
To say that they "accompany" each other suggests that they're independent existents, which is not true. Consciousness does not "accompany" matter; it is the product of certain physiological processes, and cannot exist without them.
. . . no one knows WHY. Not even those great neuroscientists whose “incontrovertible evidence” you keep promising to cite, but somehow never get around to doing so.
I didn't promise to cite any "neuroscientists." When I referred to neuroscience, I was simply noting that it has shown that particular conscious processes -- like rational thought -- are localized in certain areas of the brain -- like the cerebral cortex.

I asked, "Are you seriously suggesting that a person can be conscious in no particular form and by no particular means?!?"
There are different degrees of consciousness: “self-consciousness”; “attention” (i.e., conscious of something else but not yourself); dreaming; “sleeping” (which is different from complete lack of consciousness).
Self-consciousness requires consciousness of the external world. "A consciousness conscious of nothing but itself is a contradiction in terms: before it could identify itself as consciousness, it had to be conscious of something." (Rand, Atlas Shrugged, p. 1015). Therefore, self-consciousness requires a means of perception, i.e., sense organs, just as consciousness of the external world does, because without consciousness of the external world, self-consciousness would not be possible. Self-consciousness also requires a brain to process sensory information, as do dreams, which are simply a subconscious rearrangement of such information.

Earlier you said, "As long as we define our terms the way we wish, we can prove the non-existence or non-occurrence of something." I replied,
"Not true. Proof rests on concrete evidence. Knowledge isn't based on arbitrary definitions." You replied,
Math and logic are replete with proofs with no concrete evidence. Either the concrete evidence is missing entirely or it’s simply unnecessary.
The point of my reply was that knowledge isn't based on arbitrary definitions; it has to be connected to reality. This is true even of mathematical and logical concepts, whose foundations must rest on concepts gained from observing the real world. That doesn't mean that abstract proofs require any new or additional sensory evidence, but it does mean that they must be based ultimately on the evidence of the senses, as must all concepts.
No one has to test the Pythagorean Theorem concretely by drawing right triangles in the sand with a stick (like the slave in Plato’s “Meno”).
Of course not! And that's not what I meant by saying that all concepts must be based on an observation of reality.

I wrote, "Knowledge isn't based on arbitrary definitions."
There are different kinds of knowledge. Mathematical knowledge can certainly be based on arbitrary definitions.
No, it can't! I can't arbitrarily define the concept "four" as designating any set of five objects and claim it as knowledge. Nor can I arbitrarily define a circle as a four-sided figure and claim it as knowledge.
Lots of non-Euclidean geometry is based on arbitrary definitions (“Let’s pretend that NO two lines, drawn through two points, are parallel”; or, “Let’s pretend that ALL lines, drawn through two points, are parallel.”)
These are not arbitrary definitions, if their truth depends on what it is that you mean by “lines.”

I wrote, “You couldn't simply say, ‘Good people do not commit murders; my client is a good person; therefore, he didn't commit this murder.’”
Quite untrue. Your defense attorney adjusts the kind of argument he uses to suit the kinds of arguments used by the prosecution. If the prosecution presents concrete incriminating evidence, your attorney either throws that evidence into doubt or presents concrete evidence to the contrary. If the prosecution presents arguments based on your character, the defense brings up arguments based on your character (such as witnesses to your character, who will attest under oath that “He is a good person / good people don’t commit murder / ergo, WD could not have committed murder.” That would be sufficient to establish your innocence if your goodness or lack thereof were the gravamen of the trial.
Yes, but observe that he had to present concrete evidence of his client’s good character; he couldn’t just assert it as an arbitrary statement.

I wrote, “Claude, are you using ‘believe’ in the sense of ‘strongly suspect’ (e.g., ‘I don't know for a fact that he murdered her, but I believe he did.’). If you are, then I would agree with you. I was using ‘believe’ in the stronger sense of a ‘claim to knowledge’."
Outside of math and logic, where we get to invent the definitions . . .
You don’t get to “invent” the definitions.
. . . no knowledge is completely certain. Outside of math and logic, all belief is of the “strongly suspect” variety.
Not true. I can be certain of many things outside of math and logic. I can be certain that I am alive and well, that I am typing this post, etc.

I wrote, “I don't think the mere ability to challenge and exert power over other species is sufficient to establish consciousness. And, although intelligence is the capacity to acquire and apply knowledge, it is doubtful that plants possess 'knowledge' in any normally understood sense of that term.”
There is no “normally understood” sense of the term “knowledge.” You are simply applying that term as it is experienced by an organism with self-consciousness, such as human beings.
Well, if there is no normally understood sense of the term “knowledge,” then what does it mean to say that plants possess knowledge?

I wrote, “I agree that plants are not automatons or machines; they're clearly living organisms, but even though they're able to interact with their environment in a goal-directed, self-sustaining manner, that doesn't mean that they are consciously aware of their environment.”
It means precisely that. You confuse your general description with a definition; then you claim this “definition” has higher status than empirically verified knowledge. I’ll stick with the plant experts on this one.
The plant experts that you cite are experts in botany, not in epistemology or in the categorization of conscious processes.

I wrote, “Not true. Again, I'm not simply tendering an arbitrary definition.”
That’s true. You are in fact tendering a general description of human self-consciousness, which you confuse for a definition. Then you move beyond that entirely by claiming that this general description gives you enough knowledge to tell us something about “preconditions.”
I’m not confusing anything with a definition. I didn’t offer a formal definition in terms of genus and differentia. I simply stated the preconditions of consciousness.

I wrote, “Consciousness is a faculty of living organisms.”
That’s a description, not a definition.
Yes, it’s a description, not a definition. I never claimed that it was a definition. I claimed that it was a fact! Why are you focusing on the distinction between a definition and a description??

I wrote, “Prior to the emergence of life on earth, there was no evidence of living organisms, nor of entities that possess consciousness."
Huh? “Prior to the emergence of life on earth, there was no evidence of living organisms”? Profound. I like this one, too: “Prior to the emergence of wheat, there was no evidence of wheat products such as bread or pasta.”
Good one, Claude! :-) What I meant to say is that “Prior to the emergence of life on earth, there was no evidence of entities possessing consciousness, since only living organisms possess it. “

I wrote, “We also know that once an animal dies, its physical processes cease and it no longer exhibits any evidence of being conscious.”
That in no way means that consciousness has disappeared. It simply means that consciousness – whatever it is – was acting through the animal, making itself known to you by means of the animal. When a TV broadcast station dies, it ceases to function; the television signals it broadcast are still out there, radiating away.
No. That analogy won’t work, because consciousness is not like a television signal, which CAN exist independently of the broadcast station after the station ceases to transmit the signal. “Again, a consciousness requires a form and a means of perception, both of which cannot exist without a material basis in reality.”
Again, matter and mind are polar opposites; they complement each other in Existence. With the exception of certain entities inexactly referred to as “particles”, matter requires the existence of consciousness in order to BE matter. All qualities, for example – hard, soft, green, red, loud, quiet, etc. – exist only as qualities to consciousness. Nothing is objectively “green” or “hard”. To some particles, neutrinos for example, nothing really exists: it’s all just empty space.
Let me see if I understand what you’re saying here. Are you saying that the concept of “matter” is understood only in contradistinction to the concept of “mind,” so that if there were no mind, there would be no matter? If so, then I think I understand better the point you’re making. But I don’t see that it contradicts the point I'm making, which is that the mind still requires sense organs and a brain in order to exist and function. Granted, we refer to these organs as material or physical in contradistinction to the mental, but if a person dies, we would say that his physical (or material) body (along with his various organs) still exists, even though he no longer possesses any consciousness. In so doing, we recognize that his mind, consciousness or soul depends on the existence of functional physical organs.

I wrote, “Really! So inanimate matter is conscious?? The sun, the moon, the stars are all conscious? Remarkable.”
I’m glad you think so, but I didn’t say that. Once more: You have zero proof – except your own definitions – that matter can exist without consciousness…this doesn’t mean that matter is conscious; it means that matter requires its complement, consciousness, in order to BE matter.
Okay. I see your point, which is that the CONCEPT “matter” would not exist without the CONCEPT of “consciousness.” My point was that what we now call “matter” or “material existents”, such as the sun, moon and stars, etc. would still exist without consciousness, but that consciousness would not exist without what we now call “matter.”

I wrote, “Consciousness is ‘defined’ ostensively.”
“Ostensive definition” = “mere description.” This is useful in the primitive beginnings of a discipline when you don’t have any actual knowledge about the thing you’re trying to study. It’s one of the hallmarks of pre-scientific societies that its members forever remain in the grip of ostensive definitions. It’s one of the hallmarks of scientific societies that its members move beyond them to actual empirical knowledge of the thing they are studying.
No, you’re misunderstanding what I (and Objectivists) mean by “ostensive.”
With certain significant exceptions, every concept can be defined and communicated in terms of other concepts. The exceptions are concepts referring to sensations, and metaphysical axioms.

Sensations are the primary material of consciousness and, therefore, cannot be communicated by means of the material which is derived from them. The existential causes of sensations can be described and defined in conceptual terms (e.g., the wavelengths of light and the structure of the human eye, which produce the sensations of color), but one cannot communicate what color is like, to a person who is born blind. To define the meaning of the concept “blue,” for instance, one must point to some blue objects to signify, in effect: “I mean this.” Such an identification of a concept is known as an “ostensive definition.”

Ostensive definitions are usually regarded as applicable only to conceptualized sensations. But they are applicable to axioms as well. Since axiomatic concepts are identifications of irreducible primaries, the only way to define one is by means of an ostensive definition – e.g., to define “existence,” one would have to sweep one’s arm around and say: “I mean this.”
(Rand, ITOE, p. 52)
I wrote, “The point I was making is that consciousness a subjective manifestation OF THE BRAIN AND CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM.”
Brain and nervous system are simply the means by which this other thing called consciousness makes itself known. There is no identity between brain and consciousness, nor does the material brain have a higher metaphysical status than non-material consciousness. Without consciousness, there are no “sense organs”; just dead wiring.
Yes, there is no transmission of sensations, but consciousness is the product of a certain biological organization; it does not and cannot exist independently of a material organism.
Without light, there is no such thing as “red.” If you take a red apple into a darkened room, it’s incorrect to say “It’s a red apple but the lights happen to be out.”
Well, yes, without light, there is no such thing as red, but what is meant by saying that “it’s a red apple but the lights are out” is that under conditions of normal lighting, the apple would appear red, i.e., would reflect light along a certain wavelength, but I get your point.
If the lights are out, the red no longer exists. If consciousness is gone, even the term “sense organs” is a contradiction: there’s nothing to sense and nothing to do the sensing.
Okay, but the person would still have eyes, even though they’re no longer functional, which is all I meant to say.

I wrote, “I'm not sure what your point is. If a direct experience of consciousness is not sufficient to know "what" it is, then what kind of information do you require? What would satisfy you?”
Only someone ensnared by his own arbitrary “definitions” could doubt that there was something to know about some fact of reality beyond one’s mere experience of it.
Claude, if you want me to continue this conversation, you need to cut the sarcasm, which seems to be your characteristic manner of dealing with those you disagree with. When you ask, “What is it,” you’re simply asking for an identification; you’re not requesting further information, which is why I didn’t understand your statement that you didn’t know what consciousness is. You can identify consciousness by direct experience – by introspection – which is enough to tell you “what” it is. Obviously, to identify it – to know what it is -- is not to know everything about it.

- Bill


(Edited by William Dwyer on 2/01, 2:57pm)


Post 62

Friday, February 1, 2008 - 2:58pmSanction this postReply
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Mr. Fletch says:

Well, infinite sets can't be "interpreted in a way that is congruent with observed reality", as you have been trying to point out.
BTW, Mr. Kolker, when it comes to the rationalism that you are peddling, it's not that we Objectivists "just don't get it"; we don't want it.

I reply:

Without infinite locally compact sets (in the topological sense) you do not have differential equations. Without differential equations you do not have physics. Apparently you have little or no knowledge of the theory of real and complex variables upon which physics depends. Newton invented calculus so he could state the laws of motion as differential equations. With these equations and the law of gravitation he was able to predict the motion of planets and other cosmic bodies to a high degree of precision.

And you call this rationalism? I call it rationality.

Bob Kolker



Post 63

Friday, February 1, 2008 - 3:19pmSanction this postReply
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Claude Shannon (post #49):
There is no “concrete evidence” proving the Law of Contradiction, or the Law of Excluded Middle.
I beg to differ. There is either (A) 3 or more dimes in my pocket or (~A) 2 or fewer dimes in my pocket.


Post 64

Friday, February 1, 2008 - 4:50pmSanction this postReply
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reply to post #63

Without the law of non-contradiction we cannot distinguish true assertions from false assertions. Ex falsi quodlibet. From a falsehood anything follows.

This is the way our brains do inference. Allowing a logical contradiction is like introducing a non-stop self loop into a computer program. Once reached nothing else happens.

Bob Kolker


Post 65

Sunday, February 3, 2008 - 11:47amSanction this postReply
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In Post 57, Bob Kolker wrote,
There are no known contradictions in set theory. The contradiction is in your head. Can I make it any clearer?

First, do you know what the word "infinite" means when applied to sets? You probably do not. A set has infinite cardinality if and only if it can be put into one to one correspondence with a proper subset of itself.
Right, but this doesn’t address the issue of potential versus actual infinity, which is a philosophical issue, not a mathematical one.

In Post 47, you wrote, "[T]he theory of transfinite numbers and set theory (as formalized under ZFC) regards infinities as completed (actual) entities and not merely a potential for 'adding just one more'."

If I understand you correctly, the distinction you're making between infinite sets as "completed (actual) entities" and those which merely have the "potential" for adding more members is as follows: A “potentially” infinite set is one with a finite number of members to which more can always be added. For example, suppose one had a counting machine that could count continuously without limit. At any point in its process of counting, it would have counted to a finite number, but it would continue adding to that set of numbers without limit. The set of numbers to which it had counted at any point in the process and would continue adding to without limit would be a potentially infinite set. Correct?

What you mean by an infinite set that is a "completed actual entity" (i.e., an "actually" infinite set) is a set that already includes infinitely many members, like the set of all integers, not one that merely has a finite number of members (say, one to ten thousand) but to which more can always be added. Correct?

If so, I do understand what you’re saying. But here is the point I was making. Your “actually” infinite set, while it differs in concept from the one that’s “potentially” infinite, does itself have only a potential existence. To say that the set of all integers is infinite can mean only that there is no highest number – no number beyond which another can be added. It cannot mean that there are in fact an infinite number of integers. If there were, the set of all integers would be “complete” in the sense that I meant it – that is, it would contain a highest number, which, of course, it does not.

Now you may disagree with this, but recognize that if you do, your disagreement is not mathematical but philosophical.

- Bill


(Edited by William Dwyer on 2/03, 8:30pm)


Post 66

Sunday, February 3, 2008 - 12:53pmSanction this postReply
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Bob Kolker wrote (post #57):
There are no known contradictions in set theory.
There is in my book. Start with the set of all integers. Remove half of them -- the evens or the odds. Is the remaining set the same size as the original? Cantor said "yes". I don't buy it.

http://forums.4aynrandfans.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=2649&view=findpost&p=28524


Post 67

Sunday, February 3, 2008 - 1:07pmSanction this postReply
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I have already demonstrated that the even integers can be mapped one to one onto the integers. That, by definition, means the evens have the same cardinality as the set of integers.

Pay attention to the definition.

Bob Kolker


Post 68

Sunday, February 3, 2008 - 2:27pmSanction this postReply
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Bob K., I don't buy your definition. I showed that the integers can be mapped two-to-one onto the even integers. Please pay attention.

Post 69

Sunday, February 3, 2008 - 2:55pmSanction this postReply
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It is not my definition. It is the standard definition of an infinite cardinal. A set has infinite cardinality if and only if it can be mapped one to one onto a proper subset of itself. That is the definition used by mathematicians who deal with infinite sets.

If you don't like it, don't bother doing mathematics.

Bob Kolker


Post 70

Sunday, February 3, 2008 - 3:07pmSanction this postReply
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Bob Kolker:
If you don't like it, don't bother doing mathematics.
Very funny, Bob. If you were a woman, I'd be wondering how much you looked and sounded like Hillary Clinton. :-)  Must I cease balancing my checkbook, too?




Post 71

Sunday, February 3, 2008 - 4:17pmSanction this postReply
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I am talking about real mathematics. Like proving theorems from postulates. Balancing checkbooks is arithmetic, not mathematics and you can do it with a hand held calculator or use pebbles.

You don't have to know about infinite cardinals to do simple arithmetic.

Bob Kolker


Post 72

Sunday, February 3, 2008 - 10:29pmSanction this postReply
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In Post #57, Bob wrote: "There are no known contradictions in set theory." Merlin replied, "There is in my book. Start with the set of all integers. Remove half of them -- the evens or the odds. Is the remaining set the same size as the original? Cantor said 'yes'. I don't buy it."

Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as the set of "all" integers, because if you have all of something, then there is no more of it, but there is always more of an infinite set. Of course, if "the set of all integers" simply means a set that subsumes whatever integers one can count to or conceive of (in contrast to a restricted quantity), then the concept is entirely legitimate.

But in that case, it makes no sense to talk about taking "half" of the set of all integers, because there is no such thing as half of a (potentially) infinite quantity. And even if there were, it could not be considered smaller than the whole, because half of an infinite quantity is still infinite. If the half were finite, then twice that quantity would itself be finite, not infinite as was the original quantity.

- Bill


(Edited by William Dwyer on 2/03, 10:39pm)

(Edited by William Dwyer on 2/03, 11:02pm)


Post 73

Monday, February 4, 2008 - 12:13amSanction this postReply
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My reply was that I wasn't defining it arbitrarily, but was identifying its biological requirements, which is true.

No one knows what the biological requirements of consciousness are – only that consciousness accompanies biological organisms, and vice versa. Period. That’s a trivially true statement. To refer to your constant harping on a trivially true statement as “an identification of a requirement” is to credit your observation with more importance than it deserves.

The term “ostensive definition" refers to something that you can’t identify without direct experience.

For example, what pain feels like can only be known “ostensively.” You have to experience it to know what it feels like.


An ostensive definition is no definition at all, but rather a way of getting across the meaning of something by means of pointing at a concrete example of the definiendum; presenting it, or displaying it. Ostensive definition already presupposes a mind capable of abstraction, otherwise the pointing and displaying are of no use. For a dramatized lesson in this, watch the great movie “The Miracle Worker” with Ann Bancroft and Patty Duke, about the early education of Helen Keller. No matter how much presenting of concretes was done by Anne Sullivan, Helen Keller could not get the concept. It was only when she finally did so – in the explosive scene at the end of the movie when Helen finally understands the abstract meaning of “water” – that all that ostensiveness paid off. First comes abstraction; then comes ostensive definitions, and not the other way around.

Furthermore, the fact that something can be presented ostensively in no way means that that is the only way it can be defined. It might be presented ostensively because no one knows anything about it.

“Ostensive” is a term in the Objectivist lexicon, which I thought you were familiar with, since you seemed to have some familiarity with other aspects of the philosophy. Sorry for using it, if it confused you. I wasn’t trying to be “high-falutin.”

The Objectivist lexicon? “Ostensive”, as a term denoting a kind of definition, goes back at least to the 16th century, and belongs to the ordinary English lexicon. I am familiar with the correct usage of the word; I was unfamiliar with your particular idiosyncratic usage. Even in your last post, you mischaracterize it. You conflate the notions of “definition” and “identity”, calling ostensive definitions “something you can’t identify without direct perception.” Ostensive definitions are a way of defining something by pointing at it, showing it, or displaying it. Strictly speaking, it's not a definition at all. It's a way of getting across what YOU mean by something to someone else. That meaning need not be of the defining sort.

Rand's example that you quote at length is weak. To define the percept "blue" requires that you point to a blue something and tell your interlocutor "by blue, I mean this." But what precisely does he get from that? If you point to a blue beachball and say "by blue, I mean THIS," is it the beachball you're pointing at? How is he to know without a process of abstraction and a process of elimination? If he has already seen beachballs and knows that they are called "beachballs" he may know that "blue" does not mean the ball itself. But perhaps the way the ball is situated in the sand...is that what you mean by "blue"?

The reason that a person of ordinary intelligence and experience would probably "get it" is that he already has done lots and lots of abstraction: he already knows about the concept "color", for example, and therefore already has conceptual clues as to what to look for -- and what NOT to look for -- when you point to a beachball and say "by blue, i mean this."

So Rand's example is not a good one, as it assume too much on the part of the person trying to learn a concept ostensively.

Finally, as far as axioms go, the truth is that axioms play a valuable role in teaching; they play a valuable role in after-the-fact justification of that field of knowledge; they play no role in the initial investigations -- the trial and error, the conjectures and refutations (to use Popper's terminology). Only after fruitful solutions have been arrived at to previous problems can we then "boil the knowledge down" to a set of irreducible primaries that the researchers claim lie at the base of their system. Axioms are a late arrival in the organization of knowledge, not the starting point.

Because they are a late arrival, it's obvious that the reason they were chosen as axioms is convenience. They work. They organize the knowledge in an elegant way.

The important point I was making, which you don’t seem to be grasping, despite my having stated it over and over, is that consciousness requires a particular FORM of awareness, which in turn requires a MEANS of awareness. You’re not getting this. Stop and think about it for a minute.

When you first made that point it was merely trivially true; now that you equate “grasping" what you say with “agreeing" with what you say, and have decided to state the trivially true point “over and over”, you have successfully managed to combine being both trivially true and boring at the same time and in the same respect. Congratulations.

Here’s an analogy that shows where you’ve gone wrong (not in life; just in your argument):

No one has ever actually seen light. Light is not something that we see; light is a MEANS BY WHICH we see entities; this is true whether the entity radiates its own light or merely reflects the light radiated by a source. In the famous photo of sunbeams filtering through the windows of Grand Central Station, what we’re seeing is not sunbeams but dust. We see the dust by means of the sunlight but what we actually see is dust, not sunlight.

Just as light is a means by which we see entities, consciousness is the means by which we experience vision. A photon smacks into a protein molecule in the retina, physically deforming the molecule. A series of biochemical reactions ensues known as the “vision cascade” resulting in an electrical signal being conducted by the optic nerve to the visual cortex. So far, THERE’S NO VISION. So far, this is nothing but precondition. When the signal reaches the visual cortex, it is experienced NOT BY THE CORTEX, but by something else called “mind” or “consciousness”, and is experienced as “vision.” “Vision” is not a “form of consciousness” as you keep droning. “Vision” is the name of a kind of experience within consciousness. Consciousness – like light in the analogy above – is the means BY WHICH we experience vision.

Dust particles are not a form of light; light is the MEANS BY WHICH we see the dust particles. Vision is not a form of consciousness; consciousness is the MEANS BY WHICH we experience something called vision.

No one can say what the “form” of consciousness is. We only know the kinds of experiences we have within consciousness by means of the senses. We have five senses (though some would say more than five) so we have five broad classes of experiences. That has nothing to do with a limitation of consciousness to five forms.

Your harping on the statement that consciousness must have a form, and that form is dictated by the particular sense in operation at the moment – vision, hearing, feeling, taste, smell – reminds me of the “Eight Avatars of Vishnu”; Vishnu has eight forms, or avatars (Krishna being one of them). In your view, human consciousness has five forms: the vision form, the hearing form, the feeling form, the taste form, and the smell form. Five and no more. Since our imaginations supposedly grows out of the soil of these five senses, we cannot, in your view “even conceive” of any kind of sixth, seventh, or eighth sense; ergo, we cannot conceive of a different form of consciousness from the five we have.

Your error, which falls under the category of “Naïve Materialism” is to equate the senses with consciousness itself; or rather with “forms” of consciousness.

Any state of awareness that you can imagine has a particular form – visual, auditory, tactile, etc. It HAS to have such a form; otherwise it wouldn’t exist.

That you can’t imagine something is no more than a failure of imagination. As Peikoff once said about a similar argument during a lecture, “That argument confuses Walt Disney with reality.”

But the particular form of awareness is a function of an organism’s sensory receptor(s).

It’s not a FUNCTION of them. It’s the other way around. An organism’s sensory organs function as sensory receptors precisely because they are “plugged” into something that can experience these impulses subjectively. You conflate the senses with the mind. Read “De Anima” by Aristotle.

The kind of receptors an organism has determines the form in which it perceives the external world.

It determines the kind of raw data that consciousness will interpret. It doesn’t “determine the form” of consciousness.

Consciousness does not "accompany" matter; it is the product of certain physiological processes, and cannot exist without them.

Obviously wrong unless you want to tout epiphenomenalism and doubt free will. Consciousness is not the “product” of anything, any more than matter is the “product” of something. Matter simply IS. It merely changes forms. Mind simply IS. It too changes forms.

Epiphenomenalism is also in the Objectivist Lexicon. Look it up. Read “Biology Without Consciousness” in The Objectivist.

I didn't promise to cite any "neuroscientists." When I referred to neuroscience, I was simply noting that it has shown that particular conscious processes -- like rational thought -- are localized in certain areas of the brain -- like the cerebral cortex.

You claimed that neuroscience had “incontrovertible evidence” that consciousness was inside the brain. That’s what you wrote. Now you backpeddle and claim, “Oh, er, uh, ah, did I say ‘inside the brain’? Dear me! I meant ‘localized in certain areas’” which is something completely different and points to nothing whatsoever as far as WHERE consciousness is located. That sight CORRELATES with the visual cortex means nothing more than that patch of tissue is necessary (though not sufficient) to have the subjective experience called “vision.” It doesn’t mean that visual experiences are located “in” that part of the brain.

It turns out than in order to watch the Oprah Winfrey show, the two prongs at the end of the power cord – known as the “plug” – have to be inserted into an AC outlet. Ergo, according to your reasoning, the Oprah Winfrey show must be located inside the plug. It stands to reason! No? OK, then I'll backpeddle: let's just say that the Oprah Winfrey show is "localized" in the plug...gotta admit that without that plug, there's just no watching the Oprah Winfrey show.

"A consciousness conscious of nothing but itself is a contradiction in terms: before it could identify itself as consciousness, it had to be conscious of something." (Rand, Atlas Shrugged, p. 1015).

(Yawn) Stop quoting Rand when you can’t think of anything to write. I said nothing about consciousness conscious of nothing but itself. I mentioned a consciousness NOT conscious of itself and ONLY conscious of other things.

And once again, your use of the term “external world” is question begging. Whether or not existence is really cloven into an “external world” and an “internal world”, with the former having higher metaphysical status than the latter because you assume for no good reason that it appeared first, is precisely what we’re discussing. I’ve already given the analogy of the inside and outside of a box.

Therefore, self-consciousness requires a means of perception, i.e., sense organs,

That says nothing about what conscousness IS. The means of perception are not consciousness per se.

The point of my reply was that knowledge isn't based on arbitrary definitions; it has to be connected to reality. This is true even of mathematical and logical concepts, whose foundations must rest on concepts gained from observing the real world.

Kolker has already set you straight on that. Mathematical concepts are empty of empirical content, and need not have any sort of connection to the material world to be valid mathematical concepts. That much of mathematics is congruent to the material world is certainly interesting and certainly a profound mystery. Galileo wondered about that himself in his famous essay “On Two New Sciences.”

These are not arbitrary definitions, if their truth depends on what it is that you mean by “lines.”

It doesn't depend on what we mean by "lines." It hinges on what we mean by "parallel" and non-Euclidean geometry invents two axioms, based on Euclid's fifth postulate (given a line and a point lying outside the line, there is one and only one line through that point which is parallel to the first line). That is intuitively obvious. Riemann and Lobachevsky arbitrarily changed it. One said "Let's pretend that through a point outside of a line we can draw NO lines that are parallel to the first line. Let's see what follows if we START with that assumption." The other said "This is bully fun! Let's assume the opposite! Let's assume that through that point lying outside that line we can draw an infinite number of lines that are parallel to that first line. Let's see what follows if we START with that assumption."

Completely arbitrary.

Additionally, much of physics is made up. Karl Popper has written much about this in his book “Conjectures and Refutations.” Newton had no reason whatsoever for claiming that the moon and a falling apple are the same kinds of things undergoing similar kinds of motion; he had no reason to unify heavenly science (astronomy) and earthly science (physics), which had existed separately since Aristotle. He had no reason to claim something in defiance of sense perception: that a body in motion will tend to stay in motion. That is something no one on earth had ever seen or could imagine (there’s that failure of imagination again). He invented all this. He also invented gravity. Up until Newton’s day, what we today know as “gravity” didn’t exist. Up until Newton’s day, “gravity” was a word in the dictionary that derived immediately from Latin – “gravitas” – and meant “heaviness.” Newton took the word, used it as a metaphor – that’s right, as a metaphor – to describe an invention of his imagination: a mysterious invisible force emanating from the center of the earth into space and pulling in other objects. The strength of this invisible mysterious force could be quantified according to an inverse-square relation; furthermore, the older definition of “gravitas”, meaning “weight”, would now be explained as the interaction of this mysterious invisible force (which didn’t exist until he named it into being) and another mysterious property called “mass.” “Mass” was a concept that derived from the theory of “Impetus” that emerged in medieval physics.

Newton had no reason for supposing that cosmic forces act on mysterious invisible entities called “point masses”.

As Popper says, Newton was simply a very lucky guesser. Most of his guessing, by the way, had to do with mystical influences in his life. He was a devoted Cabalist and believed that a Cabalistic structure governed the universe.

The plant experts that you cite are experts in botany, not in epistemology or in the categorization of conscious processes.

And you are neither an expert in epistemology nor plants. The vote is in on this one. I stay with the plant experts.

No. That analogy won’t work, because consciousness is not like a television signal, which CAN exist independently of the broadcast station after the station ceases to transmit the signal.

Once more: If the TV station dies and you have no TV stations, and the civilization you inhabit has no TV stations or any means of “conceiving” of one (there’s that failure of imagination again), you would have no way of know that the TV signals go one forever. Same with consciousness.

“Again, a consciousness requires a form and a means of perception, both of which cannot exist without a material basis in reality.”

Once more: the material reality we experience day by day informs us that consciousness has visual experiences by means of the eyes; auditory experiences by means of the ears; olfactory experiences by means of the nose; etc. This doesn’t demonstrate that consciousness can’t exist without the sense apparatus. It demonstrates the trivially true observation that we require eyes to see, ears to hear, etc. True. Very true. But very "big deal."

But I don’t see that it contradicts the point I'm making, which is that the mind still requires sense organs and a brain in order to exist and function.

Once more: mind requires sense organs to have particular sense experiences. That in no way proves or demonstrates, logically or empirically, that mind therefore ceases to exist without the senses. That’s simply unwarranted conclusion based on naïve materialist premises.

Claude, if you want me to continue this conversation, you need to cut the sarcasm, which seems to be your characteristic manner of dealing with those you disagree with.

You really are full of it. When someone disagrees with you, you jump to the arrogant position of “You must not be grasping what I’m saying”; then, as a substitute for doing your own thinking, you quote Rand (like Quick Draw McGraw and Baba Looey: “I’ll do the thin’in around here, Baba Looey!”). You deserve the sarcasm . . . and no, I don’t care if you continue the conversation or not.

Post 74

Monday, February 4, 2008 - 4:35amSanction this postReply
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Bill Dwyer wrote:
Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as the set of "all" integers, because if you have all of something, then there is no more of it, but there is always more of an infinite set.
Bill, the topic is not about anything in the external world, but simply numbers in the abstract, a creation of the human mind. This is mathematician talk. The set of all integers is a concept. If you imagine only the integer numbers, then there is more to imagine -- numbers which are not integers, e.g. 1.5, 3.14, 98.6, -7.013, etc. Each of these is a rational number, and we can imagine the set of all rational numbers. The integers are a proper subset. We can further imagine irrational numbers, e.g. 3.14159265... (pi), 2.71828... (Euler's number), etc. The rational and irrational numbers combined are called the real numbers.  There are different orders of infinity in a mathematician's conceptual space. It seems to me you are stuck on just one order.

(Edited by Merlin Jetton on 2/04, 4:58am)


Post 75

Monday, February 4, 2008 - 8:46amSanction this postReply
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Merlin,

Yes, I know there are different orders of infinity and that numbers are abstract entities, but my point was that even as a numerical abstraction, actual infinity doesn't make sense; potential infinity does.

- Bill

Post 76

Monday, February 4, 2008 - 1:44pmSanction this postReply
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You mean it does not make sense to YOU. C'est dommage. Mathematicians are not put off. You are.

Bob Kolker


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Post 77

Thursday, February 14, 2008 - 10:34amSanction this postReply
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Wishful thinking

How good to see such common sense about the afterlife amongst Objectivists!  Like the idea of a god creator of the universe concerned with the collective and personal affairs of we humans on this cosmic dot of a planet, the idea of an afterlife is just a question of wishful thinking.  I would be much more inclined to believe something which went against the grain of our natural wishful thinking - given the self-conscious mortal beings that we are.  Like the idea that when we die, we die, and the bits of us that went to fuel and support our particular personal spark of life force  (and how lucky we are to be here!) disperse and reappear to fuel and support the continuing life sparks of worms, birds, trees, animals, other people, etc - all of course evolutionary cousins of ours with common ancestors going back to bacteria about 3 billion or so years ago.  A wonderful world and universe!

When my father was killed in 1940 at Dunkirk, someone who had nearly drowned and recovered wrote to my mother and told her that drowning was a good way to die, and that one's life flashed past one's eyes/mind in a kind of review.  I have a kind of theory that heaven or hell is a moment at the end, when each moment is a larger and larger proportion of the time that is left, when subjective time slows down and it seems like infinity - one divided by zero.  If that is the case, I hope that at that moment I will be content with my life in retrospect.  I think that this way of looking at things is a kind of replacement for the incentives that religion and ideas of an after-life provide for trying to lead a good life. Probably it is as fanciful as ideas of an after-life, but perhaps less harmful than some!  Who wants 70 virgins anyway for being a martyr and giving up our one and only life in order to destroy that of others?  And what about the virgins and their view of the matter? What a disgraceful and dangerous - for the rest of us - idea!


Post 78

Thursday, February 14, 2008 - 10:38amSanction this postReply
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Please disregard my last post.  I had only read the first 20 posts on this thread!  I'll have a look at the others sometime.

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