But I think I'm getting distracted by answering some of your specific objections... I'm really mostly concerned with why you think intuition is different than reason.
Because intuition is defined as "The act or faculty of knowing or sensing without the use of rational processes" (reason). Given the definition, either you think that intuition is different than reason or that it doesn't exist at all.
Ahh. I guess I meant to say "why do you believe intuition and reason use or are based on fundamentally different processes ?"
To my mind, intuition is a shortcut to somewhere else, and is useless without reason to back it up. Similarly, I would concede that reason itself seems to give us few new insights, without intuition to "inspire" us.
However, I remain unconvinced that intuition is some sort of mystical thing that absolutely cannot be explained with reference to the material brains functionality.
The point I was trying to make is just that. Even if reason is crippled for finding new knowledge, and we concede that intuition is required, what does this prove?
I mean, what we call creativity in science could well be a very advanced trial and error algorithm that runs through scenarios in our subconcious until a plausible solution is arrived at and we are suddenly struck by inspiration!
I disagree that all you need for your theory is that there always be the need for intuition... that supports the idea that our brains are not currently wired in a way that we can plod our way somewhere that we can leap to. Occams Razor and all that.
Every time you create thoughts to explain mind you create a bigger mind to explain with more thoughts. Any thoughts about mind are by definition subsets of mind. That's the kind of thing that causes all kinds of paradoxes in mathematics, sets that contain themselves.
Not at all. That's a convenient argument, but it doesn't hold, except in the sense that "All Models are wrong... some models are useful." For example, the only perfect model of the universe is the universe itself. That doesn't prevent us from attaining knowledge about the universe, and creating models to account for that knowledge. These models are not perfect models, but they are useful. In the same way, it is unnecessary to have a perfect model of the human brain to attain useful knowledge about it. Now the philosophical position that having thoughts about the mind somehow creates a bigger mind to explain with more thoughts is really just begging the question. Why do I need more thoughts to understand the larger mind ? That might hold if by "understanding the mind" you mean "knowing every thought in the mind", but that's not the case.
But the typical thread goes: "don't blame the technology for how some may misuse it" and then when infringers of thousands of files get sued, it's "how dare you sue music lovers!"
So
a) You didn't bother reading this thread to see how it was different from the typical one and
b) Two different questions, and two different responses.
I think its futile to sue the technology providers, and furthermore I also think it's probably bad for everyone to sue the infringers, but neither position is dependant on arguments from the other in order to have a discussion about it.
So we start with assumptions that seem self-evident and then question them. What process do we use to question them ? Reason, not intuition. Otherwise, why question them at all? The process of doubting your self-evident assumptions is a process of reason, not intuition. You might use trial and error (intuition?) in formulating some of the experiments, or even to determine some of the doubts you want to raise, but you use the process of reason to navigate them.
The cycle ends when you realize that the efficacy of further doubt is pointless. You can doubt the evidence of the senses (or your own existence) as much as you like, but it doesn't really get you anywhere. Or at least, anywhere new.
So intuition jumps you to new lines of thought to test, and you verify through reason. We agree so far then. But you then leap to the conclusion that these insights that come forth are incapable of being reached within the current system of thought (to paraphrase and restate your own sentence). I disagree. If the current system of thought is incapable of supporting these insights, then no amount of reason can verify them. Doesn't that sound logical to you ?
I think you're confusing the process of reasoning, with a paradigm of thought about a particular subject. It is true that many advances have come about from challenges to a paradigm of knowledge. However, none of these new ideas came about in a fashion that could not have been arrived at with reason. The evidence was there, and all it took was someone to reason about it in a different fashion.
I would agree that it is impossible to prove any a posteriori claim completely. But disproof is as easy as encountering a counter example. For example, the theory that the Sun travels around the Earth in the Heavens is consistent with the average persons observed phenomena. However, with more detailed examination, the terracentric theory has to be adjusted to account for the planets. Evidence is available to disprove this a posteriori claim. Simply. Helio centricity looks like a good bet, but damn, we have to jump through some hoops to get the circular epicycles to work for all the planets. Oh but an ellipse accounts for that.. and so on. Each of these hypotheses were replaced by the next. You would argue that intuition is required to make this leap each time, and yet I can explain the evidence to someone who has no emotional interest in a particular paradigm and describe the reasoning process to them, and they could reason their way into Keplerian Ellipses without any leaps of intuition required.
Brain chemistry doesn't buy you anything unless you can explain exactly how they form new thoughts. You're just shifting the question to somewhere else, not answering it.
Why doesn't this get me anything? I wasn't at the very start of the universe, but that doesn't mean I can't accept the Big Bang theory as a working, useful model of its beginning. In the same way, I don't have to know which exact neurons participate in which networks and in which manner to accept that neurochemistry is our best and most useful model for the way the brain works. And furthermore, that some supra-natural process is most likely not participating in the formation of our thoughts, or the origin of our intuitions. In fact, I've already proposed a basic and untested (but testable) theory in this thread which might account for intuition purely in brain chemistry.
But I think I'm getting distracted by answering some of your specific objections... I'm really mostly concerned with why you think intuition is different than reason. Just because we leap to specific insights and can get there later with reason - EVEN IF we couldn't get there without intuition - I'm not sure that this is all that special. Lets, for the sake of argument, assume that we *must* have intuition to get to new knowledge, and that reason can only come along behind and fill in the blanks... What does that get us ? So this would mean we ca
Which is why I said The copyright infringer is responsible for their actions...
So why is the RIAA suing Kazaa ? Kazaa is not infringing copyright themselves. They are writing software. Even if the majority is using it to illegally swap files, that just means the RIAA should go after the file-sharers, not KAZAA.
So you agree with me (and the parent poster) and yet still feel like arguing about it ?
Of course, the relevance and fairness of copyright law in this day and age (where the conglomerates get all the money and some artists see more cash from internet donations than from their royalties) is another argument altogether.
Actually, no. AT&T and MCI are national companies. The large companies are large local (ie state-wide) companies which were forced by the federal government to allow other companies to use their lines to "enhance" competition. The other companies which were allowed in had very little presence in the local market (hence were "small" companies), even while they were giants in the national long distance markets.
I'd like to add, btw, that this is pretty much what most religions are about.
They have a conclusion that is arrived at through means other than reason. (Call it divine revelation, intuition, or con-artistry). They cannot arrive at this conclusion through reason, it is impossible to do so, and yet they can manage to convince people that their conclusions are correct.
Yet with no way to verify those conclusions, no way to reason oneself into them, these assertions are little more than hopes.
Without reason, conclusions from intuition are nothing more than faith, and faith never put a man on the moon.
And even if this is true - I am still unconvinced that intuition itself cannot be explained through completely rational, reasonable, and material models.
If I can jump to a conclusion through intuition alone, and can show others how, and can somehow demonstrate this conclusion is useful and correct without reasoning at all, then maybe you've got a useful tool for acquiring knowledge.
But you don't say that. You say that intuition leads to lines of thought that cannot be found by pure reason. If I cannot get there through pure reason, then how can I verify that my conclusions are correct through the application of reason ?
Either I can use reason to get somewhere or I cannot. If I can't get there through reason first, how can I get there using reason at all?
Unless I can come to correct conclusions through intuition that cannot be arrived at by any application of reason (i.e., unprovable, untestable conclusions), then I cannot see that intuition provides anything other than a short-cut to a destination that must be retraced through the paths of reason in order to know the way there.
And even still, this is a process that occurs in our heads due to chemical reactions, no matter how correct these untestable conclusions are. It's a physical process.
So finally, even given all your latest arguments, that intuition is the root of all that we believe (whether true or false), it is still no use by itself in acquiring knowledge, since we cannot trust that our intuitions are correct without reason to verify them. Further, even should we trust them, intuition gains no special pass-card because it is and must be a natural phenomena that occurs in our brains due to electrochemical reactions between our neurons, and hence open to hypothesis and possibly eventual understanding. If we can eventually understand how intuition actually works, I would suggest that this would sort of take the wind out of the mysticism surrounding it. What do you think ?
But I also think materialism states that all phenomenon can be reduced to material. Since this would simply amount to another model with which to explain the universe, I would argue that it would always fall somewhat short.
So I ask you again - if there is nothing outside the universe, and there are no supernatural forces at work, then surely there are no phenomena that cannot be reduced to the material. If it cannot be reduced to the material, how is it not supernatural? I think we're using different definitions here.
Don't confuse a position with a model. I can hold the position that I find no evidence to prove the existence of supernatural forces, or otherwise inexplicable effects, and still yet not know how certain observations fit within a model (or even if the current models are incapable of explaining them, in which case new and better models are needed.) In the case that our models cannot (ever?) rise to the task of explaining such phenomena, I am still not completely convinced this makes such phenomena ipso facto non-material(natural?) in nature.
Like Godel's Incompleteness Theorem, it doesn't matter how smart of a mathematician you are, you will never come up with a consistent set of axioms to prove or disprove all statements regarding arithmetic.... a similar solution is used to prove you cannot write a computer program that can read any source and determine if it is correct and will never hang. It's a logical impossibility. Even so, the universe of discourse of arithmetic and computability is far smaller than human minds are capable of comprehending. Our ability to reason (not intuitively, but logically, ploddingly) makes us all more than mere computers. It allows us to come up with ternary logic, irrational numbers and theories about observable and unobserved phenomena.
So your point is what ? That intuition is more reliable than reason ? Human intuition is a pattern matching algorithm that allows us to survive in hostile environments. Reason is a human construct overlayed on instinct and provides more accurate and reliable models than intuition alone could ever do.
By saying intuition is more than another tool to arrive at verifiable scientific theories, one runs the risk of allowing equal time to quackery and mysticism.
I'd definitely say it would be more than other tools to arrive at the correct scientific theories. It is the root of all of these tools, and all that they work on.
Intuition is root of all these tools ? Nay, sir, I suggest that reason is. For every correct conclusion that has ever been guessed at, a thousand incorrect ones were postulated first. Reason has been what has allowed us to sort that wheat from the chaff. It is Reason which tells us that the people who speak with the dead are really just very good con-artists. It is Reason which helps us identify woolly-headed thinking. It is intuition which allows us to see the Face on Mars and other such bunk.
If you're not prepared to comprehend how an insight will help you, how can it occur to you in the first place?
Well, I'd be tempted to argue that such insights cannot occur to you in the first place. Not that they may occur to you, but you were unprepared for them and so failed to grasp their import. But I might be reading something into what you said that you didn't intend. ...
Therefor, there will always be uncertainties as we try to understand the world around us. The word "supernatural" would be nonsense to a panetheist. All it nature, there is no beyond nature.
Interesting. So your position is that these intuitions are perfectly natural and part of the physical and material function of our brains. There is indeed no supernatural force at work anywhere. Everything we can experience is merely part of the perfectly natural universe. You are aware this is a materialist philosophy, are you not?
Now you then go on to say (if I may restate) that humans will always be subject to their own limitiations : i.e. imprecision when formulating ad-hoc hypotheses and correlations in order to comprehend (or at least function within) the world around them.
Interestingly, I happen to agree with you. There is nothing that suggests to me that the average human will ever get away from their prediliction for seeing patterns where there are none. It's an evolutionary trait we have not yet adequately dispensed with. However, these patterns we see which may or may not be there, and these unsupported explanations don't hold any objective (or even necessarily subjective) truth. They are not perfect tools for understanding the universe, although they are definitely useful tools for surviving within our environment (including our social environment).
So while I agree that it is not certain that we will ever truly know the full model of the universe (or even a bunch of different models that are all useful for the majority of the universe), I disagree that this must always be, and that any old form of intuitive, revelationary knowledge of any kind can be valid without it being able to be verified (or better, falsified) in some manner.
That's the key difference. By saying intuition is more than another tool to arrive at verifiable scientific theories, one runs the risk of allowing equal time to quackery and mysticism. It's one thing to shout "Eureka!" while in the bath tub, it's another thing altogether to be struck with the "oneness of everything" because it just seems like it should be that way. I can verify my intuition of the former by experiementation. The latter just gives me a warm feeling late at night.
There are a couple of ideas concerning human intuition. Human brains aren't computers, and don't work the same way. When you concentrate on one line of thought for a while, much of your brain starts firing off neurons left and right. When you relax and start thinking about other things, those same neurons which are involved in many other thought processes are now wired more closely together than before and are already at a higher excitation level, and yet they partake in other networks as well, so correlations that may not have occurred to you while you were concentrating hard on one line of thought are now firing in a sort of a cascade response. So someone who has a lot of ideas relating the same subjects together can have a burst of inspiration when relaxing that is a due to this effect.
That's one theory. Hard to prove of course.
It sort of explains why such ground-breaking inspiration only happens to people who already work hard in the area. I mean, Joe Sixpack doesn't suddenly come up with the Uncertainty Principle out of nowhere. If Joe Sixpack spent much of his time thinking about maths and physics and stuff, then he might. We'd probably call him a genius.
Furthermore, few scientists worth the name will take the inspiration they've just had and *without inspection* catapult it into daylight. Rather they take these flashes and build on them with their rational tools at hand. I'm pretty sure that the apple didn't hit Newton on the head and he said "Of course! The Laws of Dynamics! How could I have missed them."
So is the underlying question : Are humans inspired by some supernatural revelationary force (ie God(s) by whatever name or attribute) or is it a function of our material and perfectly natural brains... OR do you assert : Regardless of how humans receive this inspiration, they do receive it. The very fact that we do this is perplexing and maybe supernatural because we don't presently understand exactly how it works. Thus we should accept that there are things we can never understand and should accept any possible theory on how they might, including ones that rely on no evidence whatsoever.
Is there a position I'm missing here ?.. As for the discussion of morals and their correlation between cultures, there's a pet hypothesis of mine (that I've not bothered to research, so I have no particular evidence for) that says that morals and ethics are culturally relative, but a furthermore subject to evolutionary forces. Moral systems have dual roles. They have to allow a culture to survive internally (ie, Thou Shalt Not Kill works well on your own members, otherwise your population dwindles such that the moral code is eliminated) and amongst other societies. (Thou Shalt Not Kill is often suspended or modified in times of war with other states...) Furthermore, moral codes which are inviolable and unchanging rarely survive that way when those who propound them are continually exposed to other cultures in a non-competitive fashion. In the same way that the body has structures, such as the appendix, which are hold-overs to a prior ancestor, similarly moral codes can survive with non-destructive elements in tact from a time gone by. Anyways. This is just a hypothesis, and I'm sure there's probably evidence to disprove it, or require it to be extensively modified... But I think it's kind of interesting.
Sorry - didn't read the paper - just responding to your post. Ok, so all this does is prove that your vote was cast, not for whom you cast it. How does this prevent tampering again? If there's no physical representation used for recount purposes, then I can go into the database and change for whom your vote was cast without changing the fact that you cast it.. right ?
Perhaps I should have been clear. I don't mean that the voter can identify the vote after the election - but rather that, during the voting process, they can verify that the physical representation of their vote corresponds with their intention. This is the advantage of paper voting (and electronic voting that prints out a ballot). The voter has a physical representation of their vote that they then put into a ballot box. If that piece of paper is unreadable to them, then it defeats the purpose of having it. If that piece of paper doesn't let the voter know that their vote was cast they way they want it, then they know there's a problem
Once the vote has been cast (ie put in the ballot box, recorded by the system, whatever) then the voter cannot verify his vote after the fact. That's where 2) Secrecy.. comes in.
How do you keep them from the vote buyers and vote intimidators (particularly when you are giving them to the groups with the most stake in the election outcome)?
By selling scanners at Best Buy and Circuit City, writing open source OCR software (which basically just has to read a grid of squares and say "black = 1, white = 0", which you could do by hand if you're paranoid) to use with them, and using existing open source software (say, gpg and wget) for the rest of the tasks. Open source software is an insufficient solution to evoting when it's specifically written for evoting and installed on someone else's computer (how do you know there isn't a very subtle trojan in the source, and how are you certain that the source you've read is equivalent to the binary actually running on the machine), but it's a perfect solution when it's general purpose software already running on your own computer.
How does this answer the question? You're saying everyone can read your vote, given your encrypted receipt... So I'm someone who leans on all his employees to vote my way, or they lose their job. I can go into best buy and get one of these things and MAKE DAMN SURE YOU DID.
Sure you could report me to someone, but I'm probably in bed with one or more political candidates who just won the election, so who's gonna care?
8. Make it verifiable so that people who fear the machines are compromised can look to a vote record that comfirms the voters intentions without recourse to the machine itself...
Yes - computers are good at counting. However people are also good at manipulating computers (and other people).
The problem is not that a computer system *couldn't* make a good vote recording and counting system - it's that there *won't* be one that can be trusted unless there are some other non-electronic means of verification that the majority of the people can refer to.
There are several problems with the democratic process of voting that any system has to be able to overcome:
1/ One Person, One Vote. 2/ My Vote is secret/anonymous. 3/ My Vote is counted as I cast it. 4/ My Vote is secure from tampering. 5/ My Vote can be verified.
The problem is with 4 and 5. Computers count really well, and can preserve anonymity pretty easily. However, the mere fact that the source code is closed deprives us of trust that the vote is secure. Furthermore, since we have no trust in 4, we should need some sort of physical representation of the vote that the VOTER can use to verify that the vote was cast as he wanted. This is then held separately (in a normal ballot box maybe) in case of a recount.
It's patently absurd to trust the system for recounts, since any security penetration calls into question the electronic count in the first place... printing out a second paper verification of the already compromised information doesn't increase my trust of the count.
Hehe. I believe they were in high school when they invented the drink - but the name has stuck. Needless to say, I prefer something less toxic now that I'm long in the tooth.
Sorry - I didn't include enough detail. It is very interesting that Galileo, for much of his life, was offended by Keplers elliptical model (or perhaps his mysticism) calling it inelegant. So even as he was a staunch supporter of Copernican heliocentricity, he couldn't bear to mar the perfection of the circle by admitting that Kepler was correct.
However, Galileo, Kepler and Newton were almost contemporaries (Newton was born in the year Galileo died, and several years after Kepler died), so I referred to that as "Galileo, Kepler and Newtons time" to refer to those who were heavily influenced by the Copernican heliocentricity..
Hmm. but I did imply that it was Copernicus who suggested ellipses - I should proof read my posts more often.:) You are quite correct - it was Kepler through and through.
Ahh Pantheism (1) instead of Pantheism (2) = Polytheism... consider me corrected.
I've also been introduced to some concepts that go along with this feeling... such as the assertion "All models are wrong. Some models are useful." My general reaction to this is "So?" The fact that humans might not be able to ever satisfactorily model the entire universe, or come up with a "theory of everything" for example, doesn't actually worry me, since we have tended (through scienctific inquiry) to come up with models that approximate enough of the universe to be useful. I hope that the current trend back towards mysticism and stupidity doesn't stop these advances.
Now you may well be correct - that we cannot know everything about the universe. I tend to agree with you.
However, this doesn't propel me into the arms of mysticism or superstition, since evidence has shown that our evolving models of the universe have been and probably will continue to be efficacious. Furthermore, most forms of mysticism prove to be useless in attaining knowledge of the presently unknown. I see no reason to "fill in the gaps" of the unknowable with suspicious mumbo-jumbo.
Now to say something like.. science can't know these things, but this philosophy can, and I can prove it... that would really be something.
But how do I choose which religion or system of dogma to believe in when none of their claims or promises can be verified ?
And what's with all those dudes in the old testament having their "miracle contests" ? I mean - Moses throws his staff on the ground and it turns into a serpent and the Pharoah's wise ones don't batt an eyelid. They throw theirs down and it isn't until Moses' eats theirs that they're remotely impressed. If Yahweh was all that, why weren't the other priests impressed right away ?
And even then Pharaoh has to suffer through a gazillion plagues before he thinks "well maybe this nameless god dude is pretty tough".
I mean there are 235 references to other gods in the old testament. Sounds like God wasn't all that singular back in those days.
But he's done a smashing job of eliminating all those other pesky gods in the mean time.
Actually, I think there were problems with the epicycles theory when it came to actual observations. By Galilleo, Kepler and Newtons time it became apparent that some of the eccentricities of the planets (and the moons) motions in the sky ran counter to the epicycle theory and supported the Copernican hypothesis beyond a reasonable doubt.
As some people are fond of saying "The Devil is in the details".
I realize this is getting more and more offtopic, but I'm interested in how you can be perceived as an atheist while being a pantheist?
You say "I don't believe in silly deities or magical forces." and yet claim "I am a pantheist". Doesn't Pantheist mean effectively "Many Deities". Or do you use it in another context? Do you actually believe in many deities, or just accept that there might be deities (number unspecified) out there. Perhaps that makes you agnostic rather than pantheistic. If you don't believe in the supernatural (your very next sentence) in what way are your gods not supernatural ? Are they natural beings ? If they are natural beings, aren't they therefore subject to study or verification or falsification? Or are they simply natural, but outside the universe in some way? Doesn't that make them supernatural?
You "believe that no materialistic view of the world can explain all physical phenomenon[sic] without contradiction", and then say that religious beliefs can exist without contradicting science. What are these contradictions in materialism to which you refer ? Are there physical phenomena which cannot be adequately examined and perhaps explained with scientific thought? That is not to say there are no holes in human knowledge, that there are theories which have been wrong, or inadequate... no, you assert that there are phenomena which will never be so explained. How do you know that ? Or perhaps you are referring to conflicting scientific theories. There are plenty of those. That's one of the beauties of the scientific process. You can have multiple contradictory theories that are equally valid, until you get more evidence to distinguish them from each other.
Furthermore, most religions which have anything to say about the physical world (as opposed to the spiritual) often contradict modern human knowledge. For example, it is accepted by most scientists that the age of the earth is a number much larger than 10000 years. A literal interpretation of the Bible contradicts this figure (asserting the earth less than 10000 years old). How is that reconcilable with science? Or are you being select in those religious beliefs? Only some religions have valid beliefs then. How do you determine which ones?
Are such religious beliefs as valid as information gathered through scientific inquiry? What if future scientific theories contradict some of these beliefs ? Which ones do we throw out if they're equally valid ? Or are these religious beliefs only ok until they contradict science and then they automatically get thrown out in favour of science ?
Admitting you don't know how something works doesn't give you a free pass to bring in any old superstition as a valid hypothesis for how it might work.
Slashdot Mirror
But I think I'm getting distracted by answering some of your specific objections... I'm really mostly concerned with why you think intuition is different than reason.
Because intuition is defined as "The act or faculty of knowing or sensing without the use of rational processes" (reason). Given the definition, either you think that intuition is different than reason or that it doesn't exist at all.
Ahh. I guess I meant to say "why do you believe intuition and reason use or are based on fundamentally different processes ?"
To my mind, intuition is a shortcut to somewhere else, and is useless without reason to back it up. Similarly, I would concede that reason itself seems to give us few new insights, without intuition to "inspire" us.
However, I remain unconvinced that intuition is some sort of mystical thing that absolutely cannot be explained with reference to the material brains functionality.
The point I was trying to make is just that. Even if reason is crippled for finding new knowledge, and we concede that intuition is required, what does this prove?
I mean, what we call creativity in science could well be a very advanced trial and error algorithm that runs through scenarios in our subconcious until a plausible solution is arrived at and we are suddenly struck by inspiration!
I disagree that all you need for your theory is that there always be the need for intuition... that supports the idea that our brains are not currently wired in a way that we can plod our way somewhere that we can leap to. Occams Razor and all that.
Every time you create thoughts to explain mind you create a bigger mind to explain with more thoughts. Any thoughts about mind are by definition subsets of mind. That's the kind of thing that causes all kinds of paradoxes in mathematics, sets that contain themselves.
Not at all. That's a convenient argument, but it doesn't hold, except in the sense that "All Models are wrong... some models are useful." For example, the only perfect model of the universe is the universe itself. That doesn't prevent us from attaining knowledge about the universe, and creating models to account for that knowledge. These models are not perfect models, but they are useful. In the same way, it is unnecessary to have a perfect model of the human brain to attain useful knowledge about it.
Now the philosophical position that having thoughts about the mind somehow creates a bigger mind to explain with more thoughts is really just begging the question. Why do I need more thoughts to understand the larger mind ? That might hold if by "understanding the mind" you mean "knowing every thought in the mind", but that's not the case.
Yeah, yeah.. I've heard this before.
But the typical thread goes: "don't blame the technology for how some may misuse it" and then when infringers of thousands of files get sued, it's "how dare you sue music lovers!"
So
a) You didn't bother reading this thread to see how it was different from the typical one
and
b) Two different questions, and two different responses.
I think its futile to sue the technology providers, and furthermore I also think it's probably bad for everyone to sue the infringers, but neither position is dependant on arguments from the other in order to have a discussion about it.
Hmm. That's interesting.
So we start with assumptions that seem self-evident and then question them. What process do we use to question them ? Reason, not intuition. Otherwise, why question them at all? The process of doubting your self-evident assumptions is a process of reason, not intuition. You might use trial and error (intuition?) in formulating some of the experiments, or even to determine some of the doubts you want to raise, but you use the process of reason to navigate them.
The cycle ends when you realize that the efficacy of further doubt is pointless. You can doubt the evidence of the senses (or your own existence) as much as you like, but it doesn't really get you anywhere. Or at least, anywhere new.
So intuition jumps you to new lines of thought to test, and you verify through reason. We agree so far then. But you then leap to the conclusion that these insights that come forth are incapable of being reached within the current system of thought (to paraphrase and restate your own sentence).
I disagree. If the current system of thought is incapable of supporting these insights, then no amount of reason can verify them. Doesn't that sound logical to you ?
I think you're confusing the process of reasoning, with a paradigm of thought about a particular subject. It is true that many advances have come about from challenges to a paradigm of knowledge. However, none of these new ideas came about in a fashion that could not have been arrived at with reason. The evidence was there, and all it took was someone to reason about it in a different fashion.
I would agree that it is impossible to prove any a posteriori claim completely. But disproof is as easy as encountering a counter example.
For example, the theory that the Sun travels around the Earth in the Heavens is consistent with the average persons observed phenomena. However, with more detailed examination, the terracentric theory has to be adjusted to account for the planets. Evidence is available to disprove this a posteriori claim. Simply.
Helio centricity looks like a good bet, but damn, we have to jump through some hoops to get the circular epicycles to work for all the planets. Oh but an ellipse accounts for that.. and so on. Each of these hypotheses were replaced by the next. You would argue that intuition is required to make this leap each time, and yet I can explain the evidence to someone who has no emotional interest in a particular paradigm and describe the reasoning process to them, and they could reason their way into Keplerian Ellipses without any leaps of intuition required.
Brain chemistry doesn't buy you anything unless you can explain exactly how they form new thoughts. You're just shifting the question to somewhere else, not answering it.
Why doesn't this get me anything? I wasn't at the very start of the universe, but that doesn't mean I can't accept the Big Bang theory as a working, useful model of its beginning. In the same way, I don't have to know which exact neurons participate in which networks and in which manner to accept that neurochemistry is our best and most useful model for the way the brain works. And furthermore, that some supra-natural process is most likely not participating in the formation of our thoughts, or the origin of our intuitions.
In fact, I've already proposed a basic and untested (but testable) theory in this thread which might account for intuition purely in brain chemistry.
But I think I'm getting distracted by answering some of your specific objections... I'm really mostly concerned with why you think intuition is different than reason. Just because we leap to specific insights and can get there later with reason - EVEN IF we couldn't get there without intuition - I'm not sure that this is all that special. Lets, for the sake of argument, assume that we *must* have intuition to get to new knowledge, and that reason can only come along behind and fill in the blanks... What does that get us ?
So this would mean we ca
Which is why I said The copyright infringer is responsible for their actions...
So why is the RIAA suing Kazaa ?
Kazaa is not infringing copyright themselves. They are writing software. Even if the majority is using it to illegally swap files, that just means the RIAA should go after the file-sharers, not KAZAA.
So you agree with me (and the parent poster) and yet still feel like arguing about it ?
Of course, the relevance and fairness of copyright law in this day and age (where the conglomerates get all the money and some artists see more cash from internet donations than from their royalties) is another argument altogether.
Bait and switch.
The prankster is responsible for the prank calls, and the telephone company should not be.
The copyright infringer is responsible for their actions... and yet the RIAA is going after KAZAA
Are you following the analogy yet ?
Actually, no.
AT&T and MCI are national companies. The large companies are large local (ie state-wide) companies which were forced by the federal government to allow other companies to use their lines to "enhance" competition. The other companies which were allowed in had very little presence in the local market (hence were "small" companies), even while they were giants in the national long distance markets.
I'd like to add, btw, that this is pretty much what most religions are about.
They have a conclusion that is arrived at through means other than reason. (Call it divine revelation, intuition, or con-artistry).
They cannot arrive at this conclusion through reason, it is impossible to do so, and yet they can manage to convince people that their conclusions are correct.
Yet with no way to verify those conclusions, no way to reason oneself into them, these assertions are little more than hopes.
Without reason, conclusions from intuition are nothing more than faith, and faith never put a man on the moon.
And even if this is true - I am still unconvinced that intuition itself cannot be explained through completely rational, reasonable, and material models.
If I can jump to a conclusion through intuition alone, and can show others how, and can somehow demonstrate this conclusion is useful and correct without reasoning at all, then maybe you've got a useful tool for acquiring knowledge.
But you don't say that. You say that intuition leads to lines of thought that cannot be found by pure reason. If I cannot get there through pure reason, then how can I verify that my conclusions are correct through the application of reason ?
Either I can use reason to get somewhere or I cannot. If I can't get there through reason first, how can I get there using reason at all?
Unless I can come to correct conclusions through intuition that cannot be arrived at by any application of reason (i.e., unprovable, untestable conclusions), then I cannot see that intuition provides anything other than a short-cut to a destination that must be retraced through the paths of reason in order to know the way there.
And even still, this is a process that occurs in our heads due to chemical reactions, no matter how correct these untestable conclusions are. It's a physical process.
So finally, even given all your latest arguments, that intuition is the root of all that we believe (whether true or false), it is still no use by itself in acquiring knowledge, since we cannot trust that our intuitions are correct without reason to verify them. Further, even should we trust them, intuition gains no special pass-card because it is and must be a natural phenomena that occurs in our brains due to electrochemical reactions between our neurons, and hence open to hypothesis and possibly eventual understanding. If we can eventually understand how intuition actually works, I would suggest that this would sort of take the wind out of the mysticism surrounding it.
What do you think ?
But I also think materialism states that all phenomenon can be reduced to material. Since this would simply amount to another model with which to explain the universe, I would argue that it would always fall somewhat short.
... a similar solution is used to prove you cannot write a computer program that can read any source and determine if it is correct and will never hang. It's a logical impossibility. Even so, the universe of discourse of arithmetic and computability is far smaller than human minds are capable of comprehending. Our ability to reason (not intuitively, but logically, ploddingly) makes us all more than mere computers. It allows us to come up with ternary logic, irrational numbers and theories about observable and unobserved phenomena.
So I ask you again - if there is nothing outside the universe, and there are no supernatural forces at work, then surely there are no phenomena that cannot be reduced to the material. If it cannot be reduced to the material, how is it not supernatural? I think we're using different definitions here.
Don't confuse a position with a model. I can hold the position that I find no evidence to prove the existence of supernatural forces, or otherwise inexplicable effects, and still yet not know how certain observations fit within a model (or even if the current models are incapable of explaining them, in which case new and better models are needed.)
In the case that our models cannot (ever?) rise to the task of explaining such phenomena, I am still not completely convinced this makes such phenomena ipso facto non-material(natural?) in nature.
Like Godel's Incompleteness Theorem, it doesn't matter how smart of a mathematician you are, you will never come up with a consistent set of axioms to prove or disprove all statements regarding arithmetic.
So your point is what ? That intuition is more reliable than reason ? Human intuition is a pattern matching algorithm that allows us to survive in hostile environments. Reason is a human construct overlayed on instinct and provides more accurate and reliable models than intuition alone could ever do.
By saying intuition is more than another tool to arrive at verifiable scientific theories, one runs the risk of allowing equal time to quackery and mysticism.
I'd definitely say it would be more than other tools to arrive at the correct scientific theories. It is the root of all of these tools, and all that they work on.
Intuition is root of all these tools ? Nay, sir, I suggest that reason is. For every correct conclusion that has ever been guessed at, a thousand incorrect ones were postulated first. Reason has been what has allowed us to sort that wheat from the chaff. It is Reason which tells us that the people who speak with the dead are really just very good con-artists. It is Reason which helps us identify woolly-headed thinking. It is intuition which allows us to see the Face on Mars and other such bunk.
Exactly. But that won't stop us from invading THEM for being heathen unbelievers :)
Obviously I should stop fishing for the funny moderation today.
If you're not prepared to comprehend how an insight will help you, how can it occur to you in the first place?
...
Well, I'd be tempted to argue that such insights cannot occur to you in the first place. Not that they may occur to you, but you were unprepared for them and so failed to grasp their import. But I might be reading something into what you said that you didn't intend.
Therefor, there will always be uncertainties as we try to understand the world around us. The word "supernatural" would be nonsense to a panetheist. All it nature, there is no beyond nature.
Interesting. So your position is that these intuitions are perfectly natural and part of the physical and material function of our brains. There is indeed no supernatural force at work anywhere. Everything we can experience is merely part of the perfectly natural universe.
You are aware this is a materialist philosophy, are you not?
Now you then go on to say (if I may restate) that humans will always be subject to their own limitiations : i.e. imprecision when formulating ad-hoc hypotheses and correlations in order to comprehend (or at least function within) the world around them.
Interestingly, I happen to agree with you. There is nothing that suggests to me that the average human will ever get away from their prediliction for seeing patterns where there are none. It's an evolutionary trait we have not yet adequately dispensed with. However, these patterns we see which may or may not be there, and these unsupported explanations don't hold any objective (or even necessarily subjective) truth. They are not perfect tools for understanding the universe, although they are definitely useful tools for surviving within our environment (including our social environment).
So while I agree that it is not certain that we will ever truly know the full model of the universe (or even a bunch of different models that are all useful for the majority of the universe), I disagree that this must always be, and that any old form of intuitive, revelationary knowledge of any kind can be valid without it being able to be verified (or better, falsified) in some manner.
That's the key difference. By saying intuition is more than another tool to arrive at verifiable scientific theories, one runs the risk of allowing equal time to quackery and mysticism. It's one thing to shout "Eureka!" while in the bath tub, it's another thing altogether to be struck with the "oneness of everything" because it just seems like it should be that way. I can verify my intuition of the former by experiementation. The latter just gives me a warm feeling late at night.
There are a couple of ideas concerning human intuition. Human brains aren't computers, and don't work the same way.
.. As for the discussion of morals and their correlation between cultures, there's a pet hypothesis of mine (that I've not bothered to research, so I have no particular evidence for) that says that morals and ethics are culturally relative, but a furthermore subject to evolutionary forces. Moral systems have dual roles. They have to allow a culture to survive internally (ie, Thou Shalt Not Kill works well on your own members, otherwise your population dwindles such that the moral code is eliminated) and amongst other societies. (Thou Shalt Not Kill is often suspended or modified in times of war with other states...) Furthermore, moral codes which are inviolable and unchanging rarely survive that way when those who propound them are continually exposed to other cultures in a non-competitive fashion.
:)
When you concentrate on one line of thought for a while, much of your brain starts firing off neurons left and right.
When you relax and start thinking about other things, those same neurons which are involved in many other thought processes are now wired more closely together than before and are already at a higher excitation level, and yet they partake in other networks as well, so correlations that may not have occurred to you while you were concentrating hard on one line of thought are now firing in a sort of a cascade response.
So someone who has a lot of ideas relating the same subjects together can have a burst of inspiration when relaxing that is a due to this effect.
That's one theory. Hard to prove of course.
It sort of explains why such ground-breaking inspiration only happens to people who already work hard in the area. I mean, Joe Sixpack doesn't suddenly come up with the Uncertainty Principle out of nowhere. If Joe Sixpack spent much of his time thinking about maths and physics and stuff, then he might. We'd probably call him a genius.
Furthermore, few scientists worth the name will take the inspiration they've just had and *without inspection* catapult it into daylight. Rather they take these flashes and build on them with their rational tools at hand. I'm pretty sure that the apple didn't hit Newton on the head and he said "Of course! The Laws of Dynamics! How could I have missed them."
So is the underlying question : Are humans inspired by some supernatural revelationary force (ie God(s) by whatever name or attribute) or is it a function of our material and perfectly natural brains...
OR do you assert : Regardless of how humans receive this inspiration, they do receive it. The very fact that we do this is perplexing and maybe supernatural because we don't presently understand exactly how it works. Thus we should accept that there are things we can never understand and should accept any possible theory on how they might, including ones that rely on no evidence whatsoever.
Is there a position I'm missing here ?
In the same way that the body has structures, such as the appendix, which are hold-overs to a prior ancestor, similarly moral codes can survive with non-destructive elements in tact from a time gone by.
Anyways. This is just a hypothesis, and I'm sure there's probably evidence to disprove it, or require it to be extensively modified... But I think it's kind of interesting.
Wow... really getting off topic now
Sorry - didn't read the paper - just responding to your post.
Ok, so all this does is prove that your vote was cast, not for whom you cast it. How does this prevent tampering again? If there's no physical representation used for recount purposes, then I can go into the database and change for whom your vote was cast without changing the fact that you cast it.. right ?
Perhaps I should have been clear.
I don't mean that the voter can identify the vote after the election - but rather that, during the voting process, they can verify that the physical representation of their vote corresponds with their intention.
This is the advantage of paper voting (and electronic voting that prints out a ballot). The voter has a physical representation of their vote that they then put into a ballot box. If that piece of paper is unreadable to them, then it defeats the purpose of having it. If that piece of paper doesn't let the voter know that their vote was cast they way they want it, then they know there's a problem
Once the vote has been cast (ie put in the ballot box, recorded by the system, whatever) then the voter cannot verify his vote after the fact. That's where 2) Secrecy.. comes in.
How do you keep them from the vote buyers and vote intimidators (particularly when you are giving them to the groups with the most stake in the election outcome)?
By selling scanners at Best Buy and Circuit City, writing open source OCR software (which basically just has to read a grid of squares and say "black = 1, white = 0", which you could do by hand if you're paranoid) to use with them, and using existing open source software (say, gpg and wget) for the rest of the tasks. Open source software is an insufficient solution to evoting when it's specifically written for evoting and installed on someone else's computer (how do you know there isn't a very subtle trojan in the source, and how are you certain that the source you've read is equivalent to the binary actually running on the machine), but it's a perfect solution when it's general purpose software already running on your own computer.
How does this answer the question? You're saying everyone can read your vote, given your encrypted receipt...
So I'm someone who leans on all his employees to vote my way, or they lose their job. I can go into best buy and get one of these things and MAKE DAMN SURE YOU DID.
Sure you could report me to someone, but I'm probably in bed with one or more political candidates who just won the election, so who's gonna care?
8. Make it verifiable so that people who fear the machines are compromised can look to a vote record that comfirms the voters intentions without recourse to the machine itself...
Yes - computers are good at counting.
:
However people are also good at manipulating computers (and other people).
The problem is not that a computer system *couldn't* make a good vote recording and counting system - it's that there *won't* be one that can be trusted unless there are some other non-electronic means of verification that the majority of the people can refer to.
There are several problems with the democratic process of voting that any system has to be able to overcome
1/ One Person, One Vote.
2/ My Vote is secret/anonymous.
3/ My Vote is counted as I cast it.
4/ My Vote is secure from tampering.
5/ My Vote can be verified.
The problem is with 4 and 5. Computers count really well, and can preserve anonymity pretty easily. However, the mere fact that the source code is closed deprives us of trust that the vote is secure. Furthermore, since we have no trust in 4, we should need some sort of physical representation of the vote that the VOTER can use to verify that the vote was cast as he wanted. This is then held separately (in a normal ballot box maybe) in case of a recount.
It's patently absurd to trust the system for recounts, since any security penetration calls into question the electronic count in the first place... printing out a second paper verification of the already compromised information doesn't increase my trust of the count.
Hehe. I believe they were in high school when they invented the drink - but the name has stuck. Needless to say, I prefer something less toxic now that I'm long in the tooth.
Sorry - I didn't include enough detail. It is very interesting that Galileo, for much of his life, was offended by Keplers elliptical model (or perhaps his mysticism) calling it inelegant. So even as he was a staunch supporter of Copernican heliocentricity, he couldn't bear to mar the perfection of the circle by admitting that Kepler was correct.
:) You are quite correct - it was Kepler through and through.
However, Galileo, Kepler and Newton were almost contemporaries (Newton was born in the year Galileo died, and several years after Kepler died), so I referred to that as "Galileo, Kepler and Newtons time" to refer to those who were heavily influenced by the Copernican heliocentricity..
Hmm. but I did imply that it was Copernicus who suggested ellipses - I should proof read my posts more often.
Ahh Pantheism (1) instead of Pantheism (2) = Polytheism... consider me corrected.
.. science can't know these things, but this philosophy can, and I can prove it... that would really be something.
I've also been introduced to some concepts that go along with this feeling... such as the assertion "All models are wrong. Some models are useful." My general reaction to this is "So?" The fact that humans might not be able to ever satisfactorily model the entire universe, or come up with a "theory of everything" for example, doesn't actually worry me, since we have tended (through scienctific inquiry) to come up with models that approximate enough of the universe to be useful. I hope that the current trend back towards mysticism and stupidity doesn't stop these advances.
Now you may well be correct - that we cannot know everything about the universe. I tend to agree with you.
However, this doesn't propel me into the arms of mysticism or superstition, since evidence has shown that our evolving models of the universe have been and probably will continue to be efficacious. Furthermore, most forms of mysticism prove to be useless in attaining knowledge of the presently unknown. I see no reason to "fill in the gaps" of the unknowable with suspicious mumbo-jumbo.
Now to say something like
But how do I choose which religion or system of dogma to believe in when none of their claims or promises can be verified ?
And what's with all those dudes in the old testament having their "miracle contests" ?
I mean - Moses throws his staff on the ground and it turns into a serpent and the Pharoah's wise ones don't batt an eyelid. They throw theirs down and it isn't until Moses' eats theirs that they're remotely impressed. If Yahweh was all that, why weren't the other priests impressed right away ?
And even then Pharaoh has to suffer through a gazillion plagues before he thinks "well maybe this nameless god dude is pretty tough".
I mean there are 235 references to other gods in the old testament. Sounds like God wasn't all that singular back in those days.
But he's done a smashing job of eliminating all those other pesky gods in the mean time.
Actually, I think there were problems with the epicycles theory when it came to actual observations. By Galilleo, Kepler and Newtons time it became apparent that some of the eccentricities of the planets (and the moons) motions in the sky ran counter to the epicycle theory and supported the Copernican hypothesis beyond a reasonable doubt.
As some people are fond of saying "The Devil is in the details".
I realize this is getting more and more offtopic, but I'm interested in how you can be perceived as an atheist while being a pantheist?
You say "I don't believe in silly deities or magical forces." and yet claim "I am a pantheist". Doesn't Pantheist mean effectively "Many Deities". Or do you use it in another context?
Do you actually believe in many deities, or just accept that there might be deities (number unspecified) out there. Perhaps that makes you agnostic rather than pantheistic.
If you don't believe in the supernatural (your very next sentence) in what way are your gods not supernatural ? Are they natural beings ? If they are natural beings, aren't they therefore subject to study or verification or falsification? Or are they simply natural, but outside the universe in some way? Doesn't that make them supernatural?
You "believe that no materialistic view of the world can explain all physical phenomenon[sic] without contradiction", and then say that religious beliefs can exist without contradicting science.
What are these contradictions in materialism to which you refer ? Are there physical phenomena which cannot be adequately examined and perhaps explained with scientific thought? That is not to say there are no holes in human knowledge, that there are theories which have been wrong, or inadequate... no, you assert that there are phenomena which will never be so explained. How do you know that ?
Or perhaps you are referring to conflicting scientific theories. There are plenty of those. That's one of the beauties of the scientific process. You can have multiple contradictory theories that are equally valid, until you get more evidence to distinguish them from each other.
Furthermore, most religions which have anything to say about the physical world (as opposed to the spiritual) often contradict modern human knowledge. For example, it is accepted by most scientists that the age of the earth is a number much larger than 10000 years. A literal interpretation of the Bible contradicts this figure (asserting the earth less than 10000 years old). How is that reconcilable with science? Or are you being select in those religious beliefs? Only some religions have valid beliefs then. How do you determine which ones?
Are such religious beliefs as valid as information gathered through scientific inquiry? What if future scientific theories contradict some of these beliefs ? Which ones do we throw out if they're equally valid ? Or are these religious beliefs only ok until they contradict science and then they automatically get thrown out in favour of science ?
Admitting you don't know how something works doesn't give you a free pass to bring in any old superstition as a valid hypothesis for how it might work.
And when we finally work out how to communicate, we can ask them who they think God is ?
I can't wait for that discussion. Imagine the crusades, but ON ANOTHER PLANET !
Fantastic.