weird philosophy stuff (elijah, come here!)

[Thucydides]

of course the next question would be if you created the computer simulation with self aware sims, would they come to conclusion that they were in a simulation? If it were a perfect simulation, then the answer should be no, because the simulation is perfect.

However, in an imperfect simulation (being the only ones we can create) I don't see why this couldn't happen. Interesting...

I think the thing to do would be break down what is actually need to create self-awareness instead of wasting a whole simulation of the universe trying to recreate it. A good place to start would be a simulation of the human mind, which if ran on a fast enough computer should also be able to recreate self-awareness.

[Thucydides]

BTW, talking about life simulations, I think everyone interested in such should check out this simulation

http://demo.cs.brandeis.edu/golem/

[The Viceroy]

I find philosophy a wonderful subject. Is chaos really chaos ?? or just order in a form we cannot express mathematically ? I always remember the old random poll, when people were asked to give 10 random numbers between 1 and 10. Nobody chose 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 even though its as random a choice as any other. The reason being, its perceived to be ordered mathematically, even though its every bit as likely as any other combination if picked at random.

So is order simply the human mind adding reason to chaos, or is chaos only chaotic because we see no pattern ??? As you say, its really not very provable either way.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Thucydides
of course the next question would be if you created the computer simulation with self aware sims, would they come to conclusion that they were in a simulation? If it were a perfect simulation, then the answer should be no, because the simulation is perfect.

However, in an imperfect simulation (being the only ones we can create) I don't see why this couldn't happen. Interesting...

In a perfect simulation, what would happen would be exactly the same as what would happen in the real world. Thus, it wouldn't conclude it was in a simulation.

An imperfect simulation is kinda outside the bounds of the discussion - the whole "simulation" deal is nigh impossible anyways, and I'm speaking hypothetically.

I think the thing to do would be break down what is actually need to create self-awareness instead of wasting a whole simulation of the universe trying to recreate it. A good place to start would be a simulation of the human mind, which if ran on a fast enough computer should also be able to recreate self-awareness.

Even simpler: create a super-complex neural net AI. Give it a bunch of data about humanity, talk to it, everything, just make sure it never gets any data about self-awareness. If it comes up with the concept on its own, it would in fact be sentient.

[Kuciwalker]

A really freaky thing is this: does it really matter whether or not the calculations are done on a computer in real time? If you did it by hand, the results of the calculations would be the same - including the conclusion that the beings are self-aware. Where is this self-awareness?

[Agathon]

(1) Premise: There is an objective universe.

While this is wholly unprovable, I'm taking it for granted, because it seems to me to be impossible to formulate a meaningful philosophy that does not assume an objective universe.

The denial of this premise is usually a consequence of global scepticism. However, global scepticism has in my mind been conclusively refuted by the American philosopher, Donald Davidson.

df: Global Scepticism = the belief that all our beliefs may be false.

Why do people believe this? Well, the usual answer is that they believe that all our beliefs are based on sense impressions and that we have no way of knowing whether these represent reality accurately or not, or even at all.

But this assumes that sense impressions are what justify our beliefs. Unfortunately for the sceptic, this is false. Only beliefs can justify beliefs because only beliefs can stand in logical relationships to other beliefs. Outside the circle of belief, there are only causes, no justifications.

Sense impressions may cause us to have beliefs, but they cannot justify them. They cannot justify them because they cannot appear as premises in chains of reasoning due to the fact that sense impressions do not bear truth values.

So sense impressions and other causal stories are irrelevant to the question of whether our beliefs are justified or not. In fact, they are simply irrelevant to epistemology when that is considered as the justfication of our beliefs.

----

One might think that this concedes everything to the sceptic since it admits that we can never get beyond our beliefs to determine whether they represent the world accurately at all, and so all our beliefs must be in doubt.

Fortunately, for us, Davidson has an answer. It turns out that the sceptic, by definition, has to hold that all our beliefs may be false. But it turns out that it is in the nature of beliefs that must be mostly true. The reason is that belief and meaning are interdependent concepts. This can be shown by the following thought experiment (there are other ways of showing it, but this is the easiest).

Consider that you are attempting to learn a foreign language from scratch. You are confronted with a foreign speaker whom you are trying to interpret (all interpretation is really like this, but we don't notice because we are so used to our own language).

To translate that person's utterances into your own language (i.e make a manual listing what his utterances mean) you need to observe his verbal behaviour and the condition of the local environment. So when a rabbit runs past and the native says "gavagai" you naturally translate this as "Lo a rabbit!." But what do you need to do to do this?

Well, first you need to attribute a belief to the native in order to understand him as expressing one. Where do you get these beliefs? Well, they're yours.

But are you restricted in what beliefs you can attribute to the native, and thus what translations you can give?

The answer is no. There are an infinite amount of translation manuals (results of series of translations) that will be consistent with the evidence. This is because you can attribute all sorts of weird beliefs to the native based on the same evidence. For example, "There goes an instance of the Form of Rabbit!"; "There goes a set of rabbit parts!", "there goes my dead ancestor", etc. etc. Perhaps you can interpret him as having different names for things each day of the week. Of course your translation book will become horribly complicated and useless, but that does not mean that only one translation will fit the evidence.

You can of course narrow down the translations by trying to make the native consistent. But that still allows there to be an infinite number of possible translations, since we could attribute all sorts of weird theories to the native and still remain consistent. In short translation is underdetermined by the evidence. If you want to get a useful translation manual, you have to narrow it down further.

So how do you narrow down the possible translations without appealing to the evidence? Well, you do it by attributing large chunks of your own beliefs to the native. So when you assume that "gavagai" means, "Lo a rabbit!" you pile on the assumptions that he's referring to that single creature, uses the same name over time, isn't referring to a collection of parts, etc. etc.

If you don't narrow down the possible translations you will never be able to have effective communication with him.

So, to communicate at all, there has to be an assumption of a large amount of shared beliefs between you. That is, you have to assume that most of the things you believe are true, he thinks are true.

But this doesn't mean that you must assume that all his beliefs are true. Why? Well imagine if the native expressed a belief that you interpreted as "pigs fly". If you wanted to, you could translate him as making (to your eyes) a true statement, by translating it not as "pigs fly" but as something else consistent with the evidence. But then you would have to make revisions elsewhere in your translation dictionary, to make sure that other statements using the term "pigs" are used consistently.

But it's far easier just to attribute to him a false belief. That means you don't have to make revisions about the way he uses the term "pigs".

What this shows is that belief and meaning are interdependent concepts. I aim to translate another person's utterances (that is assign them meanings) but sometimes things get too complex. This is where belief comes in. I can attribute a false belief to him in order to make communication more efficient.

But what I can't do is say that all the native's beliefs are false. Why not? Well, remember that I have to attribute a whole background set of my own beliefs to the native to make any translation at all (remember I need them to "narrow down" the translation). So I must always assume that what the native believes is largely true by my own account. Without this, communication would be impossible.

So it turns out that I can't find anyone else's beliefs to be mostly false (since I wouldn't even be able to understand them in that case), and no one else can find mine to be mostly false - since in both cases translation would be impossible.

But hey, what if we are all collectively deluded?

Well, Davidson has an answer for that. If you agree that it is possible (not actual, but possible) for there to be someone omniscient, then it follows from the argument that that person must find all of our beliefs to be largely true, and since he's omniscient, that means most of our beliefs have to be true, so scepticism must be false.

The beauty of the last argument is that all you have to agree to is the notion that it omniscience is possible (and there seems no uncontroversial reason why not), and by the very nature of belief, it turns out that scepticism is false.

[Kuciwalker]

Agathon - couldn't the entire universe be a bad dream of mine? (seems likely )

I think that it is a critical and essential postulate, but an unprovable one.

[child of Thor]

Agathon - you shouldn't do this on xmas eve

One other thing - if mathmatics is truely the universal language of our real world/universe, then why wouldn't/shouldn't and couldn't it be a comuter program? In which case who programmed it and for what?

happy [virtual] xmas!

[Kuciwalker]

I do believe there are certain provable objective truths, but I don't believe that an objective universe (like with particles and stuff ) is provable. Mathematics and stuff is objective because you can prove false all alternatives.

[Whaleboy]

Oh, and btw, I didn't just mean this thread for him

Yay!! You're not Oerdin's DL!! . Remember that thread back in September? I'm sure I have it saved somewhere...

I just figured it would be the sort of thread he'd participate in

I'm not that transparant am I?

(1) Premise: There is an objective universe.

While this is wholly unprovable, I'm taking it for granted, because it seems to me to be impossible to formulate a meaningful philosophy that does not assume an objective universe.

(I don't actually use this in my proof, but I'd say it's an important thing to put at rest at the beginning.)

Fair play to you. Its something that has to rest on assumption, as I assume there to be no true objective. Cosmological knowledge, while indicating my position, is nowhere near a scientific proof. Again, this is a choice of metaphysical premises, and I have always regarded philosophy, especially the metas, as an art.

(2) Premise: The universe obeys deterministic physical laws.

This is also wholly unprovable. However, without deterministic laws, the universe is random, and it again seems impossible to formulate a meaningful philosophy without causality. In fact, the case where the universe is not deterministic seems very similar to the case where the universe is not objective.

Problem there is Heisenberg. The more you know a particles location, the less you know its velocity and vice versa. Uncertainty principle. Leads to such as the sum over histories. Basically means we cannot know all, and my dear friend Werner says that by definition we cannot even if we had the "power" (for want of a better word). Perhaps sufficient resources. A contradiction in terms on two levels.

However, whether or not we can know everything, for all intents and purposes, we cannot, so it is best to not infer this in ones philosophy imo, unless you incite faith. I, as a rationalist, do not.

(3) Premise: That which is not self-aware cannot independently come up with the concept of self-awareness.

Chicken and egg? As an assumption, as with all assumptions, you have to be prepared to accept that it may be wrong, and this is where relativism comes in more strongly than anything as you cannot retreat back to another position that you consider infallible (you said its unprovable).

The thing with determinism and existentialism (in its depressing mantra) is that it does not respect the subjective nature of time. As a result, you could call Platonic idealism in that respect temporal or relativist existentialism. However, I hate such labels, a mans philosophy is the philosophy of that man.

Sorry I haven't had time to answer and read more fully, time is a premium at the moment . Keep philosophising and communicating, the world needs more that do! .

[Whaleboy]

Consider also the only really solid point that all can agree with.
"There are only, or at least, thoughts".

A successful refutation of that would basically destroy philosophy. Needless to say, I'm working on it . *Whaleboy thinks of the publicity...*

[Kuciwalker]

Problem there is Heisenberg. The more you know a particles location, the less you know its velocity and vice versa. Uncertainty principle. Leads to such as the sum over histories. Basically means we cannot know all, and my dear friend Werner says that by definition we cannot even if we had the "power" (for want of a better word). Perhaps sufficient resources. A contradiction in terms on two levels.

However, whether or not we can know everything, for all intents and purposes, we cannot, so it is best to not infer this in ones philosophy imo, unless you incite faith. I, as a rationalist, do not.

Universal knowledge is not a consequence of determinism . I just mean that the laws are deterministic. Remember, I make the assumption, not due to any evidence or tendency to assume so, but because I regard it as a necessary assumption in order to create a meaningful philosophy.

Chicken and egg? As an assumption, as with all assumptions, you have to be prepared to accept that it may be wrong, and this is where relativism comes in more strongly than anything as you cannot retreat back to another position that you consider infallible (you said its unprovable).

Yeah, I think this is the weak link in the chain. It is the largest assumption, and while I'm pretty confident of it, it's still shaky.

[Kuciwalker]

A successful refutation of that would basically destroy philosophy. Needless to say, I'm working on it . *Whaleboy thinks of the publicity...*

How about this: you don't think, you only think you think

[Agathon]

Originally posted by skywalker
Agathon - couldn't the entire universe be a bad dream of mine? (seems likely )

I think that it is a critical and essential postulate, but an unprovable one.

The sceptic says more than that. He says that all your beliefs may be false. That is what Davidson takes aim at.

So even if your belief that you are in a dream is true, it can't be extended to place doubt in all your other beliefs, you need only reinterpret them to be consistent with the dream hypothesis.

The sceptical dream-theorist wants to do more than that, he wants you to say, "I don't know whether I am in a dream or not, therefore, I don't know whether any of my beliefs are true or not."

The Davidsonian pragmatist will say "I can place any one of my beliefs in doubt at any time, but I can't place them all in doubt at once."

That's not so much of a big deal, in fact it is consistent with good scientific practice.

[Whaleboy]

Universal knowledge is not a consequence of determinism . I just mean that the laws are deterministic. Remember, I make the assumption, not due to any evidence or tendency to assume so, but because I regard it as a necessary assumption in order to create a meaningful philosophy.

I don't believe it requires universal knowledge to create a meaningful philosophy, though I will further explore that just for you , its always been my disposition that it was not required. An example of such a meaningful idea based upon my supposition is as follows:

You know nothing for certain -> You cannot be certain of your own correctness -> You have only thoughts for yourself and these are not ultimately true -> You create your own philosophy but respect that it is merely an extention of your mental condition and need not apply ultimately, or for others. I dont know about you guys but I'm perfectly fine about that, but then, I have been exposed heavily to Buddhist notions of non-permanence, and tantric notions of enjoyment of the moment vs anticipation.

How about this: you don't think, you only think you think

*Whaleboy packs for Somalia...* jk