Theophage

It's kind of funny, but I consider this particular example as well as the whole idea above to be completely self-evident; it is totally obvious to me.

I wonder why this isn't so obvious to Scilver?

[ January 09, 2002: Message edited by: Theophage ]</p>

Wizardry

Regarding Taylor:

It would be bad reasoning to conclude that you were entering Wales on the basis of a naturally occuring pattern of flowers. However, it is not bad reasoning for the reason that Taylor suggests: it is the product of natural laws and processes. It is actually because there is no connection between the growth pattern of flowers and an English sentence reflecting the given name of a British province.

Consider the following information we have concerning the growth of flowers:
<ol type="1">[*]They do not arrange themselves into patterns. The growth of one flower normally does not have anything to do with the locations of other flowers, other than that flowers must grow some minimum distance away from other plants and flowers.[*]They do not influence, and are not influenced by the latin alphabet or the english language.[*]They are unaware of their precise geographical location.[/list=a]

In order for the flowers to be arranged in a meaningful "Welcome to Wales" sign, the above must be contradicted. It is reasonable to conclude that there is another force that has arranged the sign that arranges things in patterns, has knowledge of the latin alphabet and english language, and is aware of its location. The only known phenomena in the universe which has those properties are human beings. Therefore, upon the sighting of a "Welcome to Wales" sign, if you assume that the preceding conjectures regarding plant growth are correct, it is reasonable to conclude that either a human being wants you to believe that you are in Wales, or that it is an accidental arrangement of flowers with no meaning attached at all.

However, suppose that the statements regarding plant growth were false. Suppose that in regions across the world, flowers grew in specific and unique patterns. Suppose that humans recognized this pattern and developed their writing from the patterns the flowers made (it is thought the Chinese did this with cracks in turtle shells). Suppose that the boundries of provinces were determined by the pattern of flowers in that area. Under these circumstances, it would be reasonable to conclude that the flowers conveyed meaningful information even though they were the product of naturalistic patterns.

The key issue then is whether or not we can rightly assume that human perception and reasoning is an accurate representation of reality. From a naturalistic evolutionary standpoint, we should expect our perceptions to provide at least partially valid information about the world around us. Specifically, it makes sense to be able to trust those perceptions which provide information of the world that we regularly interact with. Inconsistancies between that information and reality could potentially mean death and would likely be selected against. Also, our reasoning and our senses are consistant with each other. For example, we always observe people growing older as time goes on rather than the reverse, which is what we would expect if our reasoning were dependable. Also, science has shown us that human reasoning can predict our observations, where that would be an impossible event if human reasoning were not valid.

Two conclusions can be drawn. First would be the solipsist position, that human perception and reasoning are two systems that, while internally consistant and consistant with each other, do not necessarily give us accurate information on reality exterior to our own mind. In fact, statements about the world exterior to our own mind are unverifiable, even the simple statement that such a world even exists.

The solipsist position stands on a reasonably firm logical foundation. There is no way to make a statement about the world exterior to our own mind in much the same way that physics cannot make statements about the composition of a singularity. Non-solipsists generally make the following assumptions about the world exterior to our own mind for the practical reason that even if all reality as we know it is an illusion, there is no way for us to know, so we might as well act as if there is. The first assumption is that the exterior world exists. The second is that the our senses accurately describe that world. Those two assumptions lie at the core of naturalist and mainstream theist positions concerning the natural world.

Metaphysical naturalism provides assumptions which do not contradict our observations of the universe. It is therefore reasonable to hold the belief that metaphysical naturalism is the correct worldview.

scilvr

Well, for the theist, this type of skeptical problem doesn't seem to arise. If God created my mind, than it is plausible that He would have created it with the ability to reliably generate true beliefs about Himself and creation. That would be part of being created in His image. I would tend to trust the output of a computer produced by an intelligent being (not to say that the mind is a computer, though it has similar functions), than one that was produced by mindless natural (law/chance) processes. Wouldn't you?

The problem is that there are multiple false beliefs that will produce the same survival enhancing behavior you mention in your example. It is important to note that natural selection does not select for beliefs, but for behavior. The hypothetical creatures that run away from falling trees because they think they are in a race and the appearance of a tree falling is the start signal will exhibit survival enhancing behavior just as well as a creature with a true belief about the situation. For every such situation there seem to be many more false beliefs than true ones that can produce the survival enhancing behavior that nature "selects."

Oh great, then you see my point. The features selected during the evolutionary construction of our cognitive faculties are those that produced survival enhancing behavior, not true beliefs. As you mention here, and I mentioned above, there are many beliefs that are survival enhancing, but aren't true. It seems then, because there are many more false beliefs about a situation that can produce the same selectable behavior as true ones, that the probability that such an evolutionary process would produce cognitive faculties that reliably produced true beliefs would be quite low. Hence, we have a skeptical problem for the metaphysical naturalist.

Natural selection makes no such prediction. Nature selects for creatures who exhibit survival enchancing behavior, not true beliefs. Since it has been shown that the two are seperable, it appears that you are the one that has it backwards.

scilvr

See my response to Kachana for why I don't find such an idea self-evident.

scilvr

I think this may demonstrate a missunderstanding about evolution. A naturalistic process of evolution has no foresight and does not entertain purposes. The steps that went into producing human cognitive faculties would not be selected for their ability to make sense out of reality, but rather because they jsut so happened to enhance the organisms survival and reproductive success.

The question is whether or not a mind produced by such a process would reliably make rational judgements. I see no reason to think that it would.

Yes, but nature only selects for survival enhancing behavior, not true beliefs. A creature with a mind that regularly formulated false beliefs, but exhibited survival enhancing behavior, would be just as good a candidate for selection as any. For any given situation, for every true belief that produces survival enhancing behavior, there seems to be many more false beliefs that produce the exact same behavior. For example, smith sees a hungry lion in front of him, in order to survive he must run away. What beliefs might cause him to run away? Well, there is the true belief that there is a lion in front of him and if he doesn't run away he will be eaten. But there is also the false belief that he is in a race of some sorts and the appearance of a lion is the start signal or the belief that the lion is sad and needs a hug and the best way to get a hug from a lion is to run away. Either of these false beliefs would produce the same survival enhancing behavior as the true one.

Well, the metaphysical naturalist has reason to doubt that we are in fact having a reasonable conversation. ;o)

Laurentius

AVE
Posted by scilvr:
We do not have a skeptical problem for the metaphysical naturalist for he/she is used to falsification. He/she him/herself falsifies naturalist theories.

The evolutionist theory maintains that alteration of animals forms result from accidental mutations and the selection of the best fitted individuals for survival and reproduction. Bitter anti-evolutionist criticism has often pointed out that complex structures, such as the human eye, cannot be selected through natural process.

In 1994 Daniel Nilsson and Susanne Pelger published a computer simulation of eye evolution. A flat region of cells is allowed to experience “mutations” (like, some cells can become more sensitive to light, or the whole region can change shapes). The computer model is designed to induce random alteration to the region, to calculate how well light is detected by the changing structure of cells and to select the any modification that improves the optical resolution of what is “perceived”. Throughout a period that corresponds to 400,000 years in the real world, the cell region curves into a deep spherical cavity, presenting a narrow slot and, stupor!, a lens.

The metaphysical naturalist is not a believer that does not muse over his beliefs. Besides, he/she does not only muse, he/she devices ways of verifying the data or falsifying the theories he/she believes in. And he/she will continue to believe in them until the next falsification that will prove them wrong. The advantage of the metaphysical naturalist is that he/she is not stuck in the dogmatism characterizing other categories of believers.
AVE

[ January 09, 2002: Message edited by: Laurentius ]</p>

Bill Snedden

That was, in fact, my point and Wizadry made it much better than I.

Regards,

Bill Snedden

Kachana

IF he created your mind. However, IF a deviant demon who enjoys misinformation created you, then it is plausible to believe he would have created you with the ability to gereate false beliefe about himself and reality.

The crucial point is, How did you arrive at the conclusion that a God who wants you to understand reality exists? Surely not through using your senses and reason, as this assumes that your senses and reason are enough to come to the conclusion that God exists, whereas you argue that it must be believed that God exists before we can trust our senses and reason. However, if you believe purely on faith, then there is no reason for us to be remotely convinced of your God given the hundereds of other religions that people believe on faith.

Since I believe that intelligence is the result of physical processes, the two are not neccessarily distinct. Evolution doesn't operate completly randomly, but is the continual accumulative adaptation of an organism to it's environment within constraints, as Richard Dawkins likes to say when people don't understand how soerthing can have evolved: 'Natural selection is smarter than you'.

First off, you contradict yourself. You say that natural selection doesn't select for beliefs, and then paint a hypothetical in which creatures have evolved the belief that the falling of a tree signalls the start of a race.

But leaving that aside, what you are ignoring are the whole mechanics of natural selection. Natural selection selects traits that add to an organisms survival, it is evident that mechanisms by which we avoid getting crushed to death will be selected for, whereas your example is just an absurd unprobable hypothetical. Where can you show me examples of evidence that a tree falling has/ might/ should ever signal the start of a race, and that this race impinges on the individuals survival chances to a greater extent than its avoidance of being crushed to death? To simply make up false beliefs the organism could have with no reference to it's likelihood is ridiculous.

You are confusing complex emotional beliefs with simple sensory information, and unprobable events with probable ones. It is possible that we have evolved complex emotional beliefs (e.g. that there is a God) to lead to the survival enhancing behaviours of being a close, structured community. However, if you hold that we have evolved such that our senses do not inform us of the truth of reality then it is up to you to give a selection pressure that is more probable than the selection pressure of actually seeing what is in front of you.

You can give bizarre hypotheticals and say that the only reason that I jumped out of the way of a car is because I thought it would result in me hearing an exceptionally funny joke, which I could then go and tell to a girl in a club, causing her to laugh so much that she instantly demanded unprotected sex from me, leading to the passing on of my my genes. However you also need to show that this explanation is more probable from evidence we have (e.g. similar reactions, other animals behaviour, the we actually hear a joke) than the most basic explanation, that I jumped out of the way to avoid becoming a pancake with significantly impaired chances of passing on my genes. What you are doing techincally is violating the principle of parsimony, offering complex solutions to simple problems with no backing.

Furthermore, this whole argument is damaging for your God hypothesis.

According to natural selection we evolve in ways that enhance our survival, so features of the world not directly related to our survival are not selevted for. e.g. we cannot see colours in the ultraviolet spectrum as seeing them would not significantly add to our survival chances.

Now here's the good bit. You said above that: 'If God created my mind, than it is plausible that He would have created it with the ability to reliably generate true beliefs about Himself and creation.' So then, why can't you see in the ultraviolet spectrum? Why can't you hear above 20,000 HZ? Why can other animals do this but not you? Your God seems to be hiding a great deal of truth from you, but freely dishing it out to other animals! Not exactly the behaviour of someone who wants you to understand and have true beliefs about his creation is it?

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

Bill Snedden

No, there is no misunderstanding on my part. I fully realize that any teleological appearances are the result of post-hoc rationalization. I implicitly recognized this in my post by enclosing "purpose" in quotation marks. I am not alone in my usage; Scientists commonly use such language to describe evolution as it is more readily intuited by the layperson.

I think that you are making an unwarranted assumption that the ability to make sense out of reality encumbers no advantage to survival and reproductive success. I see no reason to grant this assumption and in fact, many reasons to believe it false.

If, in fact, the ability to make sense out of reality does yield advantages to survival and reproductive success, I see no reason to think that it would not.

You are assuming that false beliefs must necessarily provide survival benefits that are at least equal to those provided by true beliefs. Again, I see no reason to believe this to be true and good reason to believe it to be false. Many false beliefs about reality (poisonous plants are good eating, tigers are friendly creatures, I can breathe underwater) are likely to have deadly or harmful effects. The same cannot be said of true beliefs. Therefore, there actually would seem to be a greater likelihood that the survival benefits provided by false beliefs are less than those provided by true beliefs and therefore the ability to develop true beliefs would be more likely to yield survival and reproductive advantage.

In addition, the example you provide to support your argument is a poor one.
In a sense, avoiding the lion's jaws is indeed a race, so the appearance of the lion is indeed the start of this race and it could be argued that this is, in fact, a true belief. However, even if we grant that it is a false belief, it would surely be the case that the failure to couple the "race belief" with the understanding that losing the race entails the loss of one's life must surely produce more negative results than the understanding that the outcome of the race involves more than just winning. The true belief therefore yields a higher survival probability.

Any creature capable of developing the concept of "hug" must surely recognize that physical proximity is a necessary component to receiving one. Therefore it is doubtful that such a creature would reason that the best way to get a hug would be to run away (thereby decreasing physical proximity). Even if we grant that such a creature might form this belief (maybe it's playing hard-to-get? ), actually receiving a "hug" from a lion is likely to be a one-time experience. Without the issue of survival at stake, the risk motivation is lower and, as above, the false belief is more likely to yield a lower survival probability than a true one.

Whether or not the adjective "reasonable" should be applied to this conversation is certainly debatable. However, only a solipsist has reason to doubt that a conversation is taking place. As you have failed to prove any necessary connection between metaphysical naturalism and solipsism, I see no reason to believe that a metaphysical naturalist has any real reason to doubt the fact that a conversation does indeed exist.

Regards,

Bill Snedden

[ January 10, 2002: Message edited by: Bill Snedden ]

[ January 10, 2002: Message edited by: Bill Snedden ]</p>

bd-from-kg

scilvr:

The argument you are making here was, to the best of my knowledge, first advanced by C.S. Lewis. Here is the version of it that appears (with the revisions he made after the first edition) in his book Miracles (from Chap. 6: The Self-Contradiction of the Naturalist:

A little later Lewis replies to the obvious answer (given by several of the posters here) as follows:

Needless to say, I don’t agree with this argument and will respond to it in a later post. But this does seem to me to be one of the best presentations of it.

Note: So far as I know this can’t be found on the net. I copied it directly from the book.