Saturday, June 25, 2011
Matt Flannagan reviews The Christian Delusion
Here. The author (John Loftus) has made an appearance in the combox.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Long before the universal Turing machine
"...for while reason is a universal instrument that is alike available on every occasion, these organs, on the contrary, need a particular arrangement for each particular action; whence it must be morally impossible that there should exist in any machine a diversity of organs sufficient to enable it to act in all the occurrences of life, in the way which our reason enables us to act." (Descartes, DMM, p. 43)
Friday, June 10, 2011
Why Descartes values truth
"...I have always had a most earnest desire to know how to distinguish the true from the false, in order that I might be able clearly to discriminate the right path in life, and proceed in it with confidence." - DMM, p. 9
Thursday, June 09, 2011
Sunday, June 05, 2011
Monday, May 30, 2011
The eye of the beholder
This review of Grand Miracle by C.S. Lewis knocked me out of my chair with laughter.
God is not cool because He's not seen as God. He's not seen as incredible and yet always near. The Grand Miracle knocks the wall down and helps the reader to think of God as the most astounding and needed being you will ever encounter--and there's not a bit of academic bilge anywhere in this book. Pour a cup of tea and read till you're crying.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
The Moorean Shift
 |
| G.E. Moore |
Skeptic:
I don't know I'm dreaming.
Therefore, I don't know if I'm standing up
Moorean Shift:
I know that I'm standing up.
Therefore, I know that I'm not dreaming.
"I agree, therefore, with that part of the argument which asserts that if I don't know that I'm not dreaming, it follows that I don't know that I'm standing up, even if I both actually am and think that I am. But this first part of the argument is a consideration which cuts both ways. For, if it is true, it follows that it is also true that if I do know that I am standing up, it follows that I do know that I'm not dreaming. I can therefore just as well argue: since I do know that I'm standing up, it follows that I do know that I'm not dreaming; as my opponent can argue: since you don't that you're not dreaming, it follows that you don't know that you're standing up. The one argument is just as good as the other, unless my opponent can give better reasons for asserting that I don't know that I'm not dreaming, than I can give for asserting that I do know that I'm standing up." (Moore, G.E. 1959. Philosophical Papers. p. 247)* "to know" for Moore is synonymous with "to be certain"
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Steven Carr on EAAN
Steven Carr gave a tongue-in-cheek response to a post of mine regarding Alvin Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism:
No doubt, feeling a pain confers many evolutionary advantages to an organism, and we needn't dispute that. The EAAN is concerned with beliefs, and more importantly how the content of beliefs relate to relevant behaviors. Given this fact, it should be obvious that only the second part of Carr's claim is even remotely relevant to the EAAN. Now how might a "belief that pain is unpleasant" help produce adaptive behaviors? Well that's easy: if the belief that pain is unpleasant causes one to pull his hand away from the fire, then we can easily fill in the story and conclude that this belief has indeed been selected for by evolution. The man who believes this will remain ambidextrous and thus more likely to survive.
But ... and this is a big old but ... it can't simply be granted that beliefs (whatever beliefs are) are related to behaviors in the way we have just assumed. In Plantinga's article, he cites four prominent views on the belief-behavior relationship, and shows how the probability of reliable cognitive faculties is low on each of them (conjoined with naturalism and contemporary evolutionary theory). In response to the common sense view which Steven Carr assumed in his comment, Plantinga has this to say:
And we can of course imagine just this scene: we have the desire to enjoy the nice, warming fire with an accompanying belief that pulling our hands away from the fire is the best way to do so. Evolution would inadvertently favor this belief by selecting for fire-avoidance behavior. Here is the kicker: evolution would select for a great number of false beliefs so long as they result in the same fire-avoidance behavior. This is Plantinga's reason for assigning a lower probability.
So I'm not sure why Carr has such an incredulous tone. Given the set of belief-desire combinations of which any member could produce the same adaptive behavior, Carr needs to come up with a reason to think this set is smaller than Plantinga has argued. 1 Right now it looks like he's just kicking up dust.
1 - Of course, many philosophers are engaged with this argument. One fine example being Steven Law.
Evolution could have designed us to move our limbs away from dangerous situations without pain being involved. We could have evolved the belief that fire was nice and warming and move our hands out of a fire because of a belief that that was the best way to get them warm.
There is no reason to think that evolution would give the true belief that pain is unpleasant, when we could have evolved to have all the benefits of pain-avoidance behaviour without experiencing pain. After all, a belief that pain is unpleasant is not something that is selected for.The underlying claim seems to amount to this: humans wouldn't have evolved pain-avoidance behaviors without the feeling of pain or the belief that pain is unpleasant.
No doubt, feeling a pain confers many evolutionary advantages to an organism, and we needn't dispute that. The EAAN is concerned with beliefs, and more importantly how the content of beliefs relate to relevant behaviors. Given this fact, it should be obvious that only the second part of Carr's claim is even remotely relevant to the EAAN. Now how might a "belief that pain is unpleasant" help produce adaptive behaviors? Well that's easy: if the belief that pain is unpleasant causes one to pull his hand away from the fire, then we can easily fill in the story and conclude that this belief has indeed been selected for by evolution. The man who believes this will remain ambidextrous and thus more likely to survive.
But ... and this is a big old but ... it can't simply be granted that beliefs (whatever beliefs are) are related to behaviors in the way we have just assumed. In Plantinga's article, he cites four prominent views on the belief-behavior relationship, and shows how the probability of reliable cognitive faculties is low on each of them (conjoined with naturalism and contemporary evolutionary theory). In response to the common sense view which Steven Carr assumed in his comment, Plantinga has this to say:
Carr's own example illustrates this well: "We could have evolved the belief that fire was nice and warming and move our hands out of a fire because of a belief that that was the best way to get them warm."For any given adaptive action, there will be many belief-desire combinations that could produce that action; and very many of those belief-desire combinations will be such that the belief involved is false.
And we can of course imagine just this scene: we have the desire to enjoy the nice, warming fire with an accompanying belief that pulling our hands away from the fire is the best way to do so. Evolution would inadvertently favor this belief by selecting for fire-avoidance behavior. Here is the kicker: evolution would select for a great number of false beliefs so long as they result in the same fire-avoidance behavior. This is Plantinga's reason for assigning a lower probability.
So I'm not sure why Carr has such an incredulous tone. Given the set of belief-desire combinations of which any member could produce the same adaptive behavior, Carr needs to come up with a reason to think this set is smaller than Plantinga has argued. 1 Right now it looks like he's just kicking up dust.
1 - Of course, many philosophers are engaged with this argument. One fine example being Steven Law.
