| | Jordan:
Nathan and Laj,
You guys are being unpleasant to one another, and that is not pleasant to read.
That happens in passionate discussion, sometimes. As the SOLO credo says, sometimes we kick ass. When someone habitually ACTS like an ass, I sometimes feel compelled to kick it, or at the least point it out. His gratuitous attack on Ed was thoroughly contemptible, and that behavior has consequences.
Our conversations have been pleasant, though, yours and mine, so perhaps that's some consolation.
Nathan,
Why not just pretend that Dennett's position is Laj's position? It seems like Laj has put his eggs in Dennett's basket, so if you refute Dennett, you'll refute Laj. Incidentally, this is largely how it works with lots of Objectivists.
You missed the point, Jordan. If Laj (or anyone else) wishes to ARGUE A POINT, let them quote precisely what point they wish to argue.
"Read Rand" or "read Dennett" is NOT an argument, and I will not debate with someone's Selected Reading List.
Trust me, I've done this often enough to know what I'm doing. Either we present actual arguments and real ideas, or we don't.
They let Rand speak for them such that if you refute Rand, you refute those Objectivists. This approach might move discussion forward.
"Read ITOE" is not an argument. The way to move the discussion forward is to present an actual idea, not links to someone else's papers and books.
Next, you are advocating "indeterminism." I want to understand that better. I think you contrast indeterminism with determinism, where determinism is at least the view that there is always and only one physically possible future.
That seems a fair statement.
Given that, I suspect you take indeterminism to mean at least the view that there is not always and only one physically possible fuutre, and more, that there is at least sometimes more than one physically possible future.
That seems OK as well. (Though I'm not sure why you and others use the expression "physically possible.") I and others also say "soft determinism." I sometimes use "flexible" as well.
If I've got your view right, then here's what I want to know from you: (1) what (falsifiable) test can we set up such that you'll reject or accept determinism? and (2) what (falsifiable) test can we set up such that you'll reject or accept indeterminism?
(1) Hard determinism cannot ever be completely established, as it speaks to a condition of the entire universe everywhere. It can, however, be falsified. Much as "all ravens are black" is falsified by a single white raven, "everything is determined by antecedent events" is falsified by a single random event.
Physics posits many such random events. If modern physics is correct, hard determinism has been falsified at the least as a universal claim.
(2) This would clearly be an indeterminate universe, at least in part, with a single random event.
If modern physics is correct, however, there is a whole level of physical existence which is substantially composed of random events, and the macro world is composed of bounded collections of this randomness, i.e., macro order is a statistically-ordered phenomenon.
Macro order gives rise to our notions of causality, which are often so regular that we posit "laws" and even determinism.
The problem with falsifying indeterminism is apparently the same problem as validating determinism--they are opposite sides of the same coin. To validate determinism at some level would be to somehow rule out all possibility that an entity can direct its own nature and create its own future.
I think the empirical evidence indicates otherwise.
I know you point to 747's as evidence of volition, but I don't see that your volition indicates an indeterminist's world.
Would volition be genuine volition in a hard determinist's universe?
I can see how allowing for more than one future leads to uncertainty, chance, randomness, etc, but I don't see how it leads to intentionality, motive, will, etc.
It doesn't. I would never claim that a flexible universe necessitates genuine volition, only that it PERMITS it.
Perhaps you mean "leads to" in a logical sense. Again, my only goal is to model a universe which will PERMIT what the empirical evidence overwhelmingly suggests, that we have volition and can choose to create things like Being 757s.
Also, while 747's might corroborate your view, I don't see how they verify your view (and refute Laj's), nor do I see how your view could be falsified.
I don't think I've ever claimed verification in the strong sense. If I did, I misspoke. I'm quite willing to live with corroboration.
I need no more. For example, I have overwhelming corroborative evidence that the world around me--this keyboard and screen, my study--are real. I consider the likelihood they are objective realities something on the very rough order of 99.99999999999999999999999999999999999999999%!
But this is at least conceivably all in my mind.
I consider the evidence of our volition, say Boeing 757s, somewhat on the same order. I don't claim, nor do I need, logically ironclad "verification" in the strong sense you are using it, as I doubt this is attainable by those rules anyway.
Strong corroboration will suffice, as that's probably all that is available to us, so it will have to do.
But the inability to "logically verify" one position or the other does not make them equally credible. There is a world of difference between:
- Boeing 757s were an inevitable product of the Big Bang.
- Boeing 757s are the product of conscious volitional beings.
Laj and his ilk try to diminish the apparent absurdity ("paradox") of their position by various means, such as positing "choice" and "volition" and "freedom" which are exact antitheses of those terms, in a universe they claim has 'only one future at any given moment.'
No wonder that advocates of this position tend to bury their conclusions in convoluted and verbose prose.
Nathan Hawking
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