Kenny

Here's a link to an unpublished paper by Plantinga detailing his version of this argument for those of you who might be interested:

<a href="http://www.homestead.com/philofreligion/files/alspaper.htm" target="_blank">Naturalism Defeated</a>

God Bless,
Kenny

Transworldly Depraved

A version of the argument by Victor Reppert can be found in the Secular Web library.

<a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/victor_reppert/reason.html" target="_blank">Argument from Reason</a>

Transworldly Depraved

Wizardry:

Thanks for your response.

I have a couple of problems with your objections.

First, you said:

Notice that you acquire the information that "there is no connection between the growth pattern of flowers and an English sentence reflecting the given name of a British province" through a source that is independent of the flowers. So in this case you have a means of checking the reliability of the flowers as a source of information. You give a couple of paragraphs of justification based on an independent source. We are not in such a situation in the case of our sensory and cognitive faculties as a source of information about the world. We have no independent means to check them. They are our only access to knowledge of the physical world.

Taylor's claim does not seem to depend upon any facts about flowers or British locations. His point seems to be more general. He appears to believe that any cause of a source of information which did not have that information in mind would not likely bring about a system aimed at truth.

Secondly, you argued:

Your objection is probably the most obvious response from a naturalist. The naturalist might claim that if our sensory and cognitive faculites were not generally reliable then we would not survive. This might be circular however. How does the naturalist gain the information that "he would not likely survive if his sensory and cognitive faculties were not reliable"? Presumably through his sensory and cognitive faculties. So he might be arguing "I know my sensory and cognitive faculties are reliable because they suggest that they are reliable." This certainly seems circular.

Another response Taylor might give would be to draw a distinction between beliefs about the world and behavior which promotes survival. This is Plantinga's approach. Interestingly he appeals to an eliminative materialist to bolster his case. He quotes Patricia Churchland in this regard:

Plantinga then goes on to give a counter-example to the claim that our beliefs would likely correspond to how things are. He says:

However, the naturalist might respond by denying a correspondence or realist theory of truth and accept something like a pragmatic theory of truth. Or the naturalist might take the eliminative approach to materlialism and deny that there is any such thing as belief. Certainly, both options seem possible.

At any rate, this is a very interesting line of reasoning. It also has close ties to the argument that determinism is self-defeating.

[ January 10, 2002: Message edited by: Transworldly Depraved ]</p>

Vorkosigan

Perhaps Paul very much likes the idea of being eaten, but when he sees a tiger, always runs off looking for a better prospect, because he thinks it unlikely that the tiger he sees will eat him. This will get his body parts in the right place so far as survival is concerned, without involving much by way of true belief. . . . . Or perhaps he thinks the tiger is a large, friendly, cuddly pussycat and wants to pet it; but he also believes that the best way to pet it is to run away from it. . . . or perhaps he thinks the tiger is a regularly recurring illusion, and, hoping to keep his weight down, has formed the resolution to run a mile at top speed whenever presented with such an illusion; or perhaps he thinks he is about to take part in a 1600 meter race, wants to win, and believes the appearance of the tiger is the starting signal; or perhaps . . . . Clearly there are any number of belief-cum-desire systems that equally fit a given bit of behavior (WPF pp. 225-226).

Accordingly, there are many belief-desire combinations that will lead to the adaptive action; in many of these combinations, the beliefs are false.

Clearly this is simplistic bullshit. Beliefs are not evolved; the decision-making systems, processing biases, and so forth are. That is why any discussion of flawed beliefs as a defeater for naturalism is absurd.

The fact is that it is possible for the man in the tiger situation to make the right move for the wrong reason. However, it is not possible for the man to do that in every situation. The world is not an experience of situations isolated from one another, but a constant flow of experiences one many different levels, from sussing out proper colors to determining which move to make in dense traffic. All of these must be done concurrently, and each depends on the other. Beliefs exist in networks.....so isolating them in the simplistic manner above will not work.

Michael

Transworldly Depraved

turtonm:

You wrote:

But Plantinga does not claim that our beliefs evolved. His example is supposed to illustrate that behavior can easily be adaptive without being based upon true beliefs.

And his example is simplistic. But I think he makes it simple so that it will not be easily misunderstood.

Wizardry

I was not the one who introduced that information. It was Taylor. I only listed the information he assumed to reach his conclusion that a "Welcome to Wales" sign was not a natural occurance. Refer to my original post:
It is impossible to reach the logical conclusion that "Welcome to Wales" spelled out in flowers is likely the result of intelligence unless you show that one of the above three statements applies. I am not disagreeing with Taylor's conclusion on the flower issue, I am merely deconstructing his reasoning to show the assumptions he makes in order to demonstrate that it is incorrectly applied to the case of human intelligence.

To spell it out, the criteria which must be used to make the preceding a relevent example would be as follows:
<ol type="1">[*]The structure must be essentially random.[*]The structure must not be able to encode any data of significance.[*]Any information stored must not be the result of actual input data.[/list=a]

One of the above would have to be true in order to conclude that human intelligence is meaningless by virtue of being the result of naturalistic processes. Obviously, within an evolutionary framework, all of the above is false and Taylor's analogy is invalid.

Which is true, but not applicable to human intelligence.

It's not circular, it is closer to axiomatic. The whole point of this naturalist's argument is to show that human conitive faculties are internally consistant. If they are internally consistant, then it is reasonable to assume that they are accurate descriptors of an outside world. In fact, it is the most probable condition, as opposed to the extremely unlikely occurance of two or more errors that cancel each other out to produce a consistant, but inaccurate system.

Of course, Plantinga neglects that as general intelligence increases, the relative benefit of having true beliefs increases as well. Contrast an instinctive retreat with a rational assessment of the situation. Sure, getting away from a tiger because you thought a race had started would be good for survival, but not really that good. A human being running in the open in a straight line is no contest for an agressive tiger. It would be much more helpful if Paul knew that he needed to get away from the tiger because it might kill him. He might be able to learn techniques of how best to evade a tiger, or he may simply decide that it would be better to kill a tiger and totally eliminate the threat. He might then devise a method for killing all threatening big cats, which would increase his chances for survival to nearly 1. Also, an adaptive intelligence is far superior to a brain function where behavior for every encounter is hardwired into the brain after a fortuitous solution is found.

Peace out.

chickensoupforthebowl

"Why should a naturalist think that her Reason gives her any real insight into reality?"

-You may define "Reason" in some specific way, but I find that there is no way to answer this question without violating the rules of logic (which "Reason" is based on I presume you agree). That is, there is no way to answer your question without begging the question. If I give a reason for why I should think my "Reason" does this or that, then I am assuming from the getgo that my reason does do such a thing, and thus I am begging the question. This was posted almost a year or two back from someone else on the "Feedback" page, and Richard Carrier said, *if I recall correctly*, that he doesn't have a reason for trusting his Reason or reasoning, but that he *observes* that it works, in which case it seems to me that one would have to hold it is not reason we should trust, but observation. In other words, I don't see how it makes any sense for me to give you a reason to justify Reason, since that would commit a fallacy of reasoning.

thefugitivesaint

scilvr states:

But, "making sense out of reality" is an enhancement of an "organisms survival and reproductive success."

Among animals who adapt largely through learning, curiosity itself has a tremendous survival value. It helped in the hunting process in our species Hunter-gatherer days because good hunters must learn about the terrain on which they hunt and must understand the behavior of those game animals on which their lives depend. And, since hunting is a cooperative group activity, brain power, expressed ultimately as culture, would have been essential for success. Here we see how problem-solving abilities would be held at a premium. The development of tools, of intelligence, and of speech may have gone hand in hand with the development of better and more efficient hunting strategies, which have undergone countless, intensive ‘trial and error’ cycles themselves. Some of who survived to see the next “cycle” of ‘tests’ may have done so by pure ‘luck’ (so to speak) but the bulk of participants who did not suffer a fatality did not survive “because they just happened to”. The bulk of participants that survived did so because they knew what to do to fulfill their goal and do so without injury (not counting accidents).

We know nothing of the language of our ancestors, but it was probably very simple and largely limited to the achievement of practical ends. In the course of later development speculative or rational intelligence developed involving the organization of complex abstractions and systems of symbols, incorporated into or reflected by the character of the language involved. With the creation and usage of organized systems of symbols our species created a new dimension of experience which at the same time yielded us an increasing control over our environment. This new dimension of experience is Culture.

All normal human beings operate within a narrow framework of convention. This convention provides a set of rules which act as guidelines for action. One learns not only how to behave in given situations, but also what to expect from others. In addition, one learns how to act in relation to the physical environment. We learn to respond not so much directly through the environment itself but indirectly through the cultural means which we have been taught by our culture. It is through the cultural process, which is of its very essence cooperative, that the growing member of the group learns what that group expects of them and what they may reciprocally expect from it. Social behavior in human groups is always patterned in terms of specific defined relationships between individuals, between individuals and groups, and between groups. Without the cooperation of its members societies could not survive. If groups of individuals became a-social they would destabilize and go the way of extinction. Effective selection is of whatever secures group-persistence which, itself, supports individual persistence.

Everything which we experience-physical objects, other people, events and processes, in short, anything which would commonly be regarded as a constituent of the spatio-temporal matrix in which we coexist-is necessarily construed by us as part of the content of our consciousness. Out of the hundred million buzzing, bright, busy signals received every minute, the human brain ignores most and organizes the rest to allow us to navigate safely in the world. It also organizes that information in conformity to whatever belief system that brain currently holds. Incorrect information concerning sensory input would most likely incur negative outcomes and would quickly be selected against.

The better we are at separating what we need to survive and how to fulfill these needs from what is detrimental to our existence and that which can end it, the better we are able to flourish as a species. This is made all the more easier by the existence of a social tradition which enables us to accumulate knowledge about the environment and to pass it down to the next generation so that adaptive behaviors can accumulate through time. This process attempts to weed out successful patterns for survival from unsuccessful patterns which inhibit survival. Development of strategies that accurately “..make sense out of reality” would be selected over those that do not.

Even if it cannot be proven with absolute certainty that any phenomenal object or event is real, experience is a good guide as to the probability of what will happen if one allows a vicious dog to tear into one's leg or to allow another person to shoot them with a gun (this is why science can, and does, do quite well even if it is limited to appearances and probabilities).

This takes a great deal out of usable context. Your “hypothetical creature” is nonsensical at best. For this “creature” was to think it was “in a race” it would need to possess a few necessary traits 1)a culture, (2) a culture that possessed a concept encompassing the term “race” (3)personal knowledge of said concept by its own participation in said culture. Here is where your “hypothetical creature” would receive any of the beliefs it would derive. The “survival enhancing behavior” would have developed already especially since your “creature” was already well into the “complex culture” stage of development. You are getting ahead of yourself with this “hypothetical” of yours.


You confuse many things here.

1)The closer our thinking patterns map the “real world” the greater our chances of survival. This means that the closer our subjective behavior is in reaction to and motivated by our experience of the objective world as it really is the most likely we will last.

2)Belief is in a different category here. There is only one reality interpreted by many perspectives. In any given situation people will react in different ways depending on several factors like A. Their perception of what is taking place,B. What they learned about said situation and how they interpreted that information. If one believes that the most efficient manner of putting out fires is to throw gasoline on it that belief will not actually entertain the outcome that would follow and refusal to alter that belief in light of ones mistake would present dire social consequences. The ability to correct “false beliefs” from “true ones” is a later stage of cognitive development facilitated by culture. It is in this realm where we learn to hone these cognitive abilities and bring out their potentials. It is here that the “trail and error” system we call “learning” takes on new and complex dimensions as the developing system itself grows with our ability to formulate alternatives or hypothesis. It is hear that we eventually learn that maintaining an arbitrary opinion about a falsified belief is considered “irrational.” Of course, epistemological “truth” lies on a different plane than philosophical “truth” but the one does inform the other and vice versa.

If the “truth” is not falsifiable and not predictive then how do we distinguish it from falsehood? Coherence is not sufficient; there are an infinite number of mutually-exclusive coherent philosophies. The method used to test for “truth” in science (used here for the above “epistemological truth”) varies depending on whether one is testing a fact or an explanation. Often, in science, the absolute “truth” of a fact can be established. The absolute “truth’ of an explanation or theory is much harder, and usually takes much longer. If scientific results survive, they do so because they work, for a large number of people of hugely varied backgrounds and interests.

But, to repeat myself, “absolute truth” is not really necessary as statistical probabilities work quite well. There is some non-arbitrary reason why we think and act the way we do at work here. When a particular way of adjudicating competing claims about “truth”, “value”, and “proper course of action” has been retained, developed, and refined over a long period of time, there must be something to recommend it beyond the preferences of a particular group that advocates it; it must be fulfilling a complex set of purposes, and its very persistence over time suggests a flexibility and efficiency that not all alternatives can match. And here is the lesson: “it is an important form of justification itself." It is NOT surprising, after all, that human groups, confronted with similar questions or problems and possessing almost identical biological make-ups, will often arrive at similar or comparable conclusions; nor is it surprising that some individuals or groups from a particular culture can accept and learn from the information provided to them from individuals and groups of other cultures.

(Here i would like to mention my support of Fallibilism, the view that many, if not most of our views could be false. The central lesson of fallibilism in philosophy is that we proceed, not towards “truth”, but away from error. It is much easier to know when we are wrong then when we are right; and the philosophical consequences of this insight, i believe, is a distrust of teleological conceptions of rationality. We rely on certain approaches to inquiry, not because we can be sure that they will yield a convergence around “truth” or agreement, but because experience has shown them to be a reliable way of avoiding certain egregious kinds of mistakes.)

“True beliefs”, as a category of “Beliefs”, is a new comer and is a disciplined task to undertake. It isn’t a simple given handed to us by evolution. We are only now getting around to exiling habits of thought more ancient than accurate. Science provides a systematic method of getting reliable information about the world; it is a continuous, self-correcting process of check and counter check. The brain is known to be an imperfect organ but sensory knowledge can be validated and corrected (where external validation is unavailable, one cannot correct error). Evolution selected us for intelligence and this has proven itself to be an effective “choice”; the cumulative advantages are in evidence everywhere you look (that includes your monitor). Having developed an elaborate environment(i.e. culture) in which this intelligence can grow and expand we have, as a species, constructed an effective and efficient method of obtaining reliable “truth” about the world. Even if this is all an “illusion” or a cosmic joke, it makes no operational difference at all. Fact or fiction the results of not eating still still converge on one outcome: death.

My question to you is this: “Why?”

The process of natural selection is not a result of blind chance (as Richard Dawkins demonstrated so nicely in The Blind Watchmaker. The process of natural selection is, on average, a process of sifting in which those combinations of genes that produce organisms best able to reproduce successfully in the environment in which they find themselves are the genes and gene combinations that make their way into the future. This “sifting” process is the very antithesis of chance. One is forced to ask oneself why one genotype is more successful than another. Specifically, what characteristics of the organism (i.e. which phenotypes) enhance the reproductive success of one genotype relative to another? And what is the process by which this comes about?

The cognitive capacity to weigh the pros and cons of the various alternatives that previous programming and present circumstances present (i.e. learning-the acquisition of behavior during the lifetime of an individual) in a realistic manner has proven to be a successful strategy which has placed negative selective pressure on instinctive behavior and on “false belief.”


Maybe this will put to rest the following contention:

.

I see every reason why this process would and does make “reliably...rational judgements.”

-theSaint

[ January 11, 2002: Message edited by: thefugitivesaint ]</p>

bd-from-kg

Kenny:

I read the paper you referenced. I found its argument underwhelming.

Plantinga’s basic argument, as I understand it, is as follows:

There are four “mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive possibilities”:

(1) Beliefs do not affect behavior.

(2) Beliefs affect behavior, but not by virtue of their content

(3) Beliefs are maladaptive, i.e., more conducive to death than survival

(4) Beliefs affect behavior by virtue of their content and are also adaptive

He then argues that, on any reasonable assumptions about the relative probabilities of these alternatives, and given that it is far from certain that beliefs produced by our cognitive faculties will be true, the overall probability that cognitive faculties can be relied on to produce true beliefs is, at best, less than 50%.

The rest of the article consists of a long, detailed analysis of various objections to the claim that this argument “defeats” naturalism. None of this is relevant unless the original argument is basically correct.

But it strikes me that this argument is the sort of thing that gives philosophy a bad name. It is so absurd that it could only have been thought up by a professional philosopher. The notion that any of the first three possibilities listed above is remotely plausible (in a sense relevant to the argument) is preposterous. Obviously beliefs affect behavior, and they affect it by virtue of their content. Obviously our beliefs are not, on the whole, maladaptive. (Even Plantinga is unable to come up with any reason to suppose that there is more than an astronomically small chance that (3) is true.) This leaves only alternative (4), which has naturally been presumed by everyone on this thread up to now, perhaps because none of us is a professional philosopher.

Next Plantinga argues that, even assuming that (4) is correct, the probability that a belief produced by those faculties will be true isn’t all that high. Why? Because “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.”

This is a remarkably wrongheaded argument. One might as well argue that the probability that evolution might produce an eye that forms accurate visual images isn’t all that high because, for any adaptive action, there are many image-desire combinations that could produce that action, and very many of these image-desire combinations will be such that the image formed does not represent reality, even to a reasonable approximation. In fact, this kind of argument could be applied to so many kinds of adaptations that is it essentially an argument against natural selection itself. This argument has been dealt with admirably and at length by others on this thread, so I’ll leave it at that for now.

Plantinga admits that this reasoning is pretty weak; as he says (referring to his hypothetical hominid), “It is easy to see, for just one of Paul's actions, that there are many different belief-desire combinations that yield it; it is less easy to see how it could be that most of all of his beliefs could be false but nonetheless adaptive or fitness enhancing.” He then goes on to give examples of how Paul’s beliefs might be systematically false but still adaptive:

The problem is that all of these examples are also compatible with his beliefs being true. To see this, let’s refer to a conceptual scheme for understanding or making sense of one’s perceptions an “ontology”. (An ontology would include all of one’s beliefs about what things exist, what their relationships - including causal relationships – are to one another, etc.) To oversimplify somewhat, the empiricist position is that an ontology is “true” (or at least “truer” than a given alternative) just insofar as it produces accurate predictions (and of course, is consistent with past observations). Two apparently different ontologies that make the same predictions in all cases can be considered to be either the same ontology or equivalent ontologies. Either way, they are equally “true”.

Now take any of Plantinga’s examples – say the last one, in which Paul thinks that all plants and animals are witches. Now either this belief has some actual consequences in the sense of making different predictions from a “witchless” ontology, or it doesn’t. If it does, its predictions will presumably be less accurate than those of a witchless ontology. (Otherwise we would agree that Paul is right: all plants and animals really are witches in his sense.) But an ontology that makes less accurate predictions will put Paul at a disadvantage in terms of natural selection. On the other hand, if the “witch” ontology makes the same predictions in all cases as a witchless one, it is just as “true”, so Paul cannot be said to have systematically false beliefs.

So Plantinga’s basic argument fails on all counts. There is no reason to doubt (at least on the grounds he advances) that the kinds of cognitive faculties evolution is apt to produce are likely to produce true beliefs with a reasonably high degree of reliability.

But it should be noted that, by its nature, natural selection will tend to “filter out” only cognitive processes that produce false beliefs that matter – i.e., that affect survival and reproduction. Since beliefs that do not affect these things will not be acted on by natural selection, we do indeed have serious reason to doubt their reliability.

Finally, note that none of this touches Lewis’s argument, since he does not dispute that, if we have reliable belief-producing mechanisms, evolution is likely to have produced them. He claims, rather, that the naturalist has no grounds for believing that we have reliable belief-producing mechanisms, and thus no grounds for believing in evolution. Lewis’s argument will be discussed in a later post.

[ January 11, 2002: Message edited by: bd-from-kg ]</p>

bd-from-kg

To all:

Now let’s look at Lewis’s argument.

Lewis is really making two arguments here. The first is that the theory of evolution (in its strict “naturalistic” form) violates a fundamental principle or “Rule” that we all “know” to be true. To put it more precisely, in light of this principle, the theory of evolution implies that our cognitive processes cannot be trusted to produce reliable knowledge. And this result is of course totally unacceptable; it would mean that no knowledge is possible, including the knowledge that the theory of evolution (or naturalism itself) is true. Moreover, in light of the available evidence, naturalism leads inescapably to the conclusion that the theory of evolution is true. So naturalism leads to the conclusion that there is no reason to believe in naturalism (or anything else), and so is out of court. The second argument is that, if naturalism is true, we have no reason to believe that our cognitive processes can be trusted to produce reliable knowledge, and thus again have no reason to believe in naturalism.

It’s easy to confuse these arguments (and in fact most of the plausibility of Lewis’s overall argument comes from conflating them). But they are really distinct. The first claims that naturalism leads to a contradiction in that it asserts that our cognitive faculties are the product of an irrational process, yet that they can be trusted to produce reliable knowledge. The second merely claims that naturalism does not contain within itself any reason to trust our “reason”. As he puts it, “Unless ... you start by assuming inference to be valid, you cannot know about [things like inherited traits and natural selection]. You have to assume that inference is valid before you can even begin your arguments for its validity. And a proof which sets out by assuming the thing you have to prove, is rubbish.” This argument doesn’t depend on the “Rule” at all; it is really just Hume’s argument that induction cannot be rationally justified, or more generally, the observation that the basic principles of rationality cannot be rationally justified.

The second argument is hardly original, and it has been the subject of intense controversy and discussion for hundreds of years. I may have more to say about it later if the discussion begins to focus on such issues, but for now let’s focus on Lewis’s first argument.

The crux if this argument is the “Rule” that “no thought is valid if it can be fully explained as the result of irrational causes”. It can’t be denied that (at least until the idea of evolution came along) everyone did believe this, and in fact considered it to be self-evident. But it seems reasonable to ask why everyone believed it. It would seem that there are two possible answers: (1) it is an innate belief; a fundamental intuition, or (2) it is based on experience.

Let’s take the second possibility first. If it is based on experience, the experiences in question cannot possibly have included a process that takes place over billions of years, and in fact shows few if any apparent results over the course of a human life. Indeed, the process of evolution is so slow that only subtle or minor results are apparent even over the entire course of recorded history. So if the “Rule” is based on experience, it can hardly be applicable to an “irrational cause” consisting of an extremely slow, cumulative process whose results are readily apparent only over time periods on the order of hundreds of thousands of years. We cannot have had any experience of such processes.

Now let’s look at the first possibility: it is a fundamental intuition. Unfortunately we have quite a few such fundamental intuitions, and a great many of them have turned out to be false. For example, we have a fundamental intuition that the geometry of space is Euclidean, that space and time are two entirely different things, that the same is true of matter and energy, that velocities are additive, that one particle cannot be in two places at the same time or interact with itself in such a way as to produce interference patterns, that a given particle has a definite position and velocity at any given moment, etc. In fact, the number of “fundamental intuitions” violated by general relativity and quantum mechanics is staggering. The only possible conclusion is that our intuitions about how reality “must be” at the fundamental level are simply not reliable. So if Lewis’s “Rule” is a fundamental intuition, there seems to be no reason to trust it to the point of using it to reject a well-established scientific theory, any more than we reject relativity or QM on such grounds.

So in either case there would seem to be no reason to think that Lewis’s “Rule” is applicable to the theory of evolution. Although the theory implies that our cognitive faculties are the product of a mindless or “irrational” process, it is a process so unlike any on which the apparent plausibility of the “Rule” is based, and so unlike any experience on which it might rest, as to constitute a unique kind of case. The human mind has a great deal of difficulty grasping the concept of “deep time”. The kinds of things that it makes possible (because it allows incredibly long causal chains) are wholly outside our experience, and our intuitive notions of “how things are” do not apply to it.

So far as I can see, Taylor’s argument rests, in the final analysis, on the same principle (or a closely related one) and so can be rejected for the same reasons.