Saturday, February 25, 2006

Free will

another piece of homework...
please note that homework constrains what i can say
i wanted to say much more...

Determinism seems to undermine free will. If everything in our body is caused by the environment, then wouldn’t we be just like any other piece of matter in the universe? Blindly and hopelessly obeying the laws of physics and causality, and not have free will?
No, we have free will. A simple proof would be to decide among a few choices, which we do all the time. But the argument against free will still needs to be refuted.

No free will means that the self does not direct itself. Determinism implicitly assumes that the self is the final result at the end of a causal chain that is the body. Because of universal causality, and because we are material, our body is subjected to the law of causality, and thus by obeying the physical laws of the universe, our bodies lead through cause and effect to a result that is our self. Our will is therefore caused. And we have no free will.

But the assumption that we are merely the result of the processes in our bodies or brain is wrong. We are our whole body, not its result. But the determinist would still insist that, even though we are our entire bodies, our bodies are caused by the environment, and so we are not free anyway. However, that is still merely thinking that our bodies are the result of the environment. The proper way to conceive of the body is to think of it as a system.

A system is matter interacting in an organized fashion giving rise to emergent properties that does not exist in any part in any of its parts. A system therefore exists in no part in any of its parts. The system is the system as a whole. The system is thus in a sense, immaterial. It is not the matter and energy interplay, but the organization and emergent properties that results. Parts of the system no doubt obey completely the laws of causality. But that does not mean that the system is determined. Because the system is the emergent entity that arises from the interactions of its parts, the system determines itself.
An example would be the Great Red Spot of Jupiter. The Great Red Spot is not the gas that is its contents. It is the immaterial system that arises from material gasses. It is the result of the interactions of the gasses. Not the gas being what it is. Because of temperature and pressure, the system moves gasses about in a spiral. Even though some gas exit the system, and some enter it. It will always be the Great Red Spot. The Great Red Spot is the system, not its contents. Likewise our bodies are systems. The material that makes up our bodies change roughly every seven years. But does that then mean our bodies are not our bodies anymore? That would be absurd.

Common sense rightly tells us that we have free will. But it gives us the wrong reasons for thinking so. We intuitively think we are somehow separate from our body. And that our will directs our body. This intuition is so innate that even when we consider our brain to be entirely based on material reality, we commit the same fallacy. We always think of ourselves as separate from our own selves, and from the outside, as if we exist outside at all. For example, when we think of our brain, we picture it functioning as if it is some other common material object. We see the ion flows, the neurotransmitter exchanges at the synapses, neurons firing etc. and that somehow all that results in consciousness. Forgetting that all that is consciousness. And that we are not some entity outside of the system of the brain. And that we are committing the fallacy of begging the question; in trying to argue that the mind is outside the brain, we assume that the mind is outside the brain.

However, the argument that our will is a system based on a material reality has unproven assumptions as well. It assumes a material basis for the mind. If our mind exists somewhere outside reality, then perhaps it is not free there?

There is currently an explanatory gap between the physical processes in the brain and consciousness. Critics therefore argue that it is a huge leap assuming the mind to have physical basis in the brain. Yet the critics are too committing the fallacy of expecting to perceive qualia from outside of the system that is the brain. They put forth silly challenges such as licking the brain to taste the flavor of chocolate that the person in the brain is experiencing. Sense leads to perception and is experienced by consciousness. Sense cannot be sensed. Perception cannot be perceived. Experience cannot be experienced. Instead physical phenomena are sensed; and sensation is perceived and experienced by consciousness that no other entity can be conscious of except itself. So it does not mean that the system of the brain is not the mind. There is an explanatory gap, but it cannot be used to disprove the mind as brain processes.

John Searle proposes the Chinese Room Argument, where he tries to show that syntax is not sufficient for semantics. In the Chinese room, a man who does not understand Chinese is supplied with a rulebook for manipulation of Chinese symbols. When given Chinese symbols, the man would use the rulebook to formulate a reply. From the outside, it would seem that the room understands Chinese. But Searle shows us that in actuality the man does not understand Chinese. There are many counter-arguments against the Chinese Room Argument. But they miss what the Chinese Room is arguing against. The Chinese Room is to show that the mind cannot be a digital computer. Not that the mind cannot have a material basis. Computers, being algorithmic in nature, can never match the complexity and potential of the brain. Strong AI proponents assume that the mind is the software where the brain is hardware. But underlying syntax is the processing of syntax, which requires a processor which is a system. It is questionable basing a theory on another theory which’s basis is simply ignored. They confuse simulation with actual functioning of the brain. Why introduce two systems, one relying on the other, and making the whole proposition somewhat shaky in the process, when only one would do? We can surely adopt the principle of parsimony here. The question is not what syntax the mind is based on, since whatever the syntax, there still needs to be a syntax processor. It is what system the mind is based on. Basically the mind is arises directly from the system of the brain, and requires no syntax whatsoever. Therefore, Searle’s Chinese Room argument cannot be used against a material basis for the mind.

There is no reason to choose a material basis for the mind if other theories are equally convincing. But they are not. We therefore have to accept that the mind has a material basis. And because it exists as a system, it is therefore free. And we have free will.

Gattaca and genetic manipulation

after watching the movie Gattaca...

Genetic manipulation means voluntary evolution for humanity. Our minds would have replaced natural selection as the mechanism for evolution. Humans should or cannot help but try to improve their lives. But then we must not forget human nature. Not all our behavior is due to culture and culture is not independent. Our genes express themselves and give rise to human nature. This does not mean restricted freedom though. Think of it this way. Freedom is something you want and you want freedom because of the expression of genes. But then would you want to not want that particular expression of your genes? But yet again, that desire to not want (wanting not to want) is the influenced by gene expression too. Of course, interaction with the environment plays a part too. But what I’m trying to say is that we are not totally independent of our genes. It is in fact ridiculous to want to be independent of our genes. Our genes define our human nature. And like I said, our particular desire to be free from our genes, is a influenced by gene expression too. Yet we cannot ignore our desire to want to not want. It shows us that human nature is defined to want to modify itself. Maybe this is pathological, maybe it is not. Maybe it is essential to human nature. But what if human nature is defined to modify itself until it is not human nature anymore. This begs the question of what is human nature. Assuming for the sake of argument, that human nature only consist of the desire to modify the human. Then we would be human no matter what, as long as we continuously desire to modify ourselves. But what if we modify ourselves to not want to modify ourselves anymore? So you see we cannot just simply modify ourselves. We must know what we want to achieve by doing that, and what we would become should we choose to do so. Of course, human nature is not only the desire to modify ourselves. And here things get complicated. How much and what sort of modification can we carry out to ourselves before we are no longer human? But perhaps some people don’t care if they are not human anymore. But that still does not allow them to modify themselves at will. First of all, they want to modify themselves. What if they modify themselves until they don’t want to want as a human anymore? Why would they want to do that? Why would a human want to be not human? The human is all there is in the self. When you are not human you are not yourself. And thus if you modify yourself, you are not modifying your self, you are modifying a thing, which is your body. If none of your self gets transmitted to the new body, it is no better than modifying inanimate matter.

The fundamental problem of human nature is human nature itself. Self-consciousness is a tragedy. The self feels separated from the body while it is really not. And from there arises the problems of being human. But also what it means to be human. We have to realize that. And that we are the interplay of instinct and consideration and we need them both.

But then how do we pin down which genetic sequence give rise to the expression to our essential nature? That is something very hard to do. I think an easier thing to do would we to pin down which genetic sequence that does not give rise to the expression of human nature. We can modify those genes, but I don’t think we should touch anything else.

Friday, February 24, 2006

ways NOT to argue

even though this is a good way to win arguments, i suggest that you use this list to CATCH yourself and the opponent using such tactics. you get into an argument to debate the truth, not to win.

i didnt write this



Thirty - Eight Ways to Win an Argument
from Schopenhauer's "The Art of Controversy"

...per fas et nefas :-)

(Courtesy of searchlore ~ Back to the trolls lore ~ original german text)

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1 Carry your opponent's proposition beyond its natural limits; exaggerate it.
The more general your opponent's statement becomes, the more objections you can find against it.
The more restricted and narrow your own propositions remain, the easier they are to defend.

2 Use different meanings of your opponent's words to refute his argument.
Example: Person A says, "You do not understand the mysteries of Kant's philosophy."
Person B replies, "Of, if it's mysteries you're talking about, I'll have nothing to do with them."

3 Ignore your opponent's proposition, which was intended to refer to some particular thing.
Rather, understand it in some quite different sense, and then refute it.
Attack something different than what was asserted.

4 Hide your conclusion from your opponent until the end.
Mingle your premises here and there in your talk.
Get your opponent to agree to them in no definite order.
By this circuitous route you conceal your goal until you have reached all the admissions necessary to reach your goal.

5 Use your opponent's beliefs against him.
If your opponent refuses to accept your premises, use his own premises to your advantage.
Example, if the opponent is a member of an organization or a religious sect to which you do not belong, you may employ the declared opinions of this group against the opponent.

6 Confuse the issue by changing your opponent's words or what he or she seeks to prove.
Example: Call something by a different name: "good repute" instead of "honor," "virtue" instead of "virginity," "red-blooded" instead of "vertebrates".

7 State your proposition and show the truth of it by asking the opponent many questions.
By asking many wide-reaching questions at once, you may hide what you want to get admitted.
Then you quickly propound the argument resulting from the proponent's admissions.

8 Make your opponent angry.
An angry person is less capable of using judgment or perceiving where his or her advantage lies.

9 Use your opponent's answers to your question to reach different or even opposite conclusions.

10 If you opponent answers all your questions negatively and refuses to grant you any points, ask him or her to concede the opposite of your premises.
This may confuse the opponent as to which point you actually seek him to concede.

11 If the opponent grants you the truth of some of your premises, refrain from asking him or her to agree to your conclusion.
Later, introduce your conclusions as a settled and admitted fact.
Your opponent and others in attendance may come to believe that your conclusion was admitted.

12 If the argument turns upon general ideas with no particular names, you must use language or a metaphor that is favorable to your proposition.
Example: What an impartial person would call "public worship" or a "system of religion" is described by an adherent as "piety" or "godliness" and by an opponent as "bigotry" or "superstition."
In other words, inset what you intend to prove into the definition of the idea.

13 To make your opponent accept a proposition , you must give him an opposite, counter-proposition as well.
If the contrast is glaring, the opponent will accept your proposition to avoid being paradoxical.
Example: If you want him to admit that a boy must to everything that his father tells him to do, ask him, "whether in all things we must obey or disobey our parents."
Or , if a thing is said to occur "often" you are to understand few or many times, the opponent will say "many."
It is as though you were to put gray next to black and call it white; or gray next to white and call it black.

14 Try to bluff your opponent.
If he or she has answered several of your question without the answers turning out in favor of your conclusion, advance your conclusion triumphantly, even if it does not follow.
If your opponent is shy or stupid, and you yourself possess a great deal of impudence and a good voice, the technique may succeed.

15 If you wish to advance a proposition that is difficult to prove, put it aside for the moment.
Instead, submit for your opponent's acceptance or rejection some true proposition, as though you wished to draw your proof from it.
Should the opponent reject it because he suspects a trick, you can obtain your triumph by showing how absurd the opponent is to reject an obviously true proposition.
Should the opponent accept it, you now have reason on your side for the moment.
You can either try to prove your original proposition, as in #14, maintain that your original proposition is proved by what your opponent accepted.
For this an extreme degree of impudence is required, but experience shows cases of it succeeding.

16 When your opponent puts forth a proposition, find it inconsistent with his or her other statements, beliefs, actions or lack of action.
Example: Should your opponent defend suicide, you may at once exclaim, "Why don't you hang yourself?"
Should the opponent maintain that his city is an unpleasant place to live, you may say, "Why don't you leave on the first plane?"

17 If your opponent presses you with a counter-proof, you will often be able to save yourself by advancing some subtle distinction.
Try to find a second meaning or an ambiguous sense for your opponent's idea.

18 If your opponent has taken up a line of argument that will end in your defeat, you must not allow him to carry it to its conclusion.
Interrupt the dispute, break it off altogether, or lead the opponent to a different subject.

19 Should your opponent expressly challenge you to produce any objection to some definite point in his argument, and you have nothing to say, try to make the argument less specific.
Example: If you are asked why a particular hypothesis cannot be accepted, you may speak of the fallibility of human knowledge, and give various illustrations of it.

20 If your opponent has admitted to all or most of your premises, do not ask him or her directly to accept your conclusion.
Rather, draw the conclusion yourself as if it too had been admitted.

21 When your opponent uses an argument that is superficial and you see the falsehood, you can refute it by setting forth its superficial character.
But it is better to meet the opponent with acounter-argument that is just as superficial, and so dispose of him.
For it is with victory that you are concerned, not with truth.
Example: If the opponent appeals to prejudice, emotion or attacks you personally, return the attack in the same manner.

22 If your opponent asks you to admit something from which the point in dispute will immediately follow, you must refuse to do so, declaring that it begs the question.

23 Contradiction and contention irritate a person into exaggerating their statements.
By contradicting your opponent you may drive him into extending the statement beyond its natural limit.
When you then contradict the exaggerated form of it, you look as though you had refuted the original statement.
Contrarily, if your opponent tries to extend your own statement further than your intended, redefine your statement's limits and say, "That is what I said, no more."

24 State a false syllogism.
Your opponent makes a proposition, and by false inference and distortion of his ideas you force from the proposition other propositions that are not intended and that appear absurd.
It then appears that opponent's proposition gave rise to these inconsistencies, and so appears to be indirectly refuted.

25 If your opponent is making a generalization, find an instance to the contrary.
Only one valid contradiction is needed to overthrow the opponent's proposition.
Example: "All ruminants are horned," is a generalization that may be upset by the single instance of the camel.

26 A brilliant move is to turn the tables and use your opponent's arguments against himself.
Example: Your opponent declares: "so and so is a child, you must make an allowance for him."
You retort, "Just because he is a child, I must correct him; otherwise he will persist in his bad habits."

27 Should your opponent suprise you by becoming particularly angry at an argument, you must urge it with all the more zeal.
No only will this make your opponent angry, but it will appear that you have put your finger on the weak side of his case, and your opponent is more open to attack on this point than you expected.

28 When the audience consists of individuals (or a person) who is not an expert on a subject, you make an invalid objection to your opponent who seems to be defeated in the eyes of the audience.
This strategy is particularly effective if your objection makes your opponent look ridiculous or if the audience laughs.
If your opponent must make a long, winded and complicated explanation to correct you, the audience will not be disposed to listen to him.

29 If you find that you are being beaten, you can create a diversion--that is, you can suddenly begin to talk of something else, as though it had a bearing on the matter in dispute.
This may be done without presumption if the diversion has some general bearing on the matter.

30 Make an appeal to authority rather than reason.
If your opponent respects an authority or an expert, quote that authority to further your case.
If needed, quote what the authority said in some other sense or circumstance.
Authorities that your opponent fails to understand are those which he generally admires the most.
You may also, should it be necessary, not only twist your authorities, but actually falsify them, or quote something that you have entirely invented yourself.

31 If you know that you have no reply to the arguments that your opponent advances, you by a find stroke of irony declare yourself to be an incompetent judge.
Example: "What you say passes my poor powers of comprehension; it may well be all very true, but I can't understand it, and I refrain from any expression of opinion on it."
In this way you insinuate to the audience, with whom you are in good repute, that what your opponent says is nonsense.
This technique may be used only when you are quite sure that the audience thinks much better of you than your opponent.

32 A quick way of getting rid of an opponent's assertion, or of throwing suspicion on it, is by putting it into some odious category.
Example: You can say, "That is fascism" or "Atheism" or "Superstition."
In making an objection of this kind you take for granted
1)That the assertion or question is identical with, or at least contained in, the category cited;
and
2)The system referred to has been entirely refuted by the current audience.

33 You admit your opponent's premises but deny the conclusion.
Example: "That's all very well in theory, but it won't work in practice."

34 When you state a question or an argument, and your opponent gives you no direct answer, or evades it with a counter question, or tries to change the subject, it is sure sign you have touched a weak spot, sometimes without intending to do so.
You have, as it were, reduced your opponent to silence.
You must, therefore, urge the point all the more, and not let your opponent evade it, even when you do not know where the weakness that you have hit upon really lies.

35 Instead of working on an opponent's intellect or the rigor of his arguments, work on his motive.
If you success in making your opponent's opinion, should it prove true, seem distinctly prejudicial to his own interest, he will drop it immediately.
Example: A clergyman is defending some philosophical dogma.
You show him that his proposition contradicts a fundamental doctrine of his church.
He will abandon the argument.

36 You may also puzzle and bewilder your opponent by mere bombast.
If your opponent is weak or does not wish to appear as if he has no idea what your are talking about, you can easily impose upon him some argument that sounds very deep or learned, or that sounds indisputable.

37 Should your opponent be in the right but, luckily for you, choose a faulty proof, you can easily refute it and then claim that you have refuted the whole position.
This is the way in which bad advocates lose good cases.
If no accurate proof occurs to your opponent, you have won the day.

38 Become personal, insulting and rude as soon as you perceive that your opponent has the upper hand.
In becoming personal you leave the subject altogether, and turn your attack on the person by remarks of an offensive and spiteful character.
This is a very popular technique, because it takes so little skill to put it into effect.

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Physics

Physics. Created by physicist? We receive it. Is it reality? Is it merely a construct of the physicist's mind? Flipping through this textbook...

The first few pages show the values of the fundamental constants. How do the physicists arrive at these values? But then all values are relative. The scale of the units are always set against something else. Physics try to progress by holding less and less things constant, and instead try to derive them from less of other things. But why are the other things the way they are? Physicists don't explain the universe, they merely describe it.

Further along, there is the different wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum. Now how did the physicists find out the other wavelengths other than visible light? It actually all starts at the senses, in this case our visual sense. Then, through the amazing combinatorial power of the brain, the physicist extrapolates from the discovered wavelength of visible light to x-rays, gamma rays, radio, microwave, etc. But then how does he manage to conceive of visible light as wavesNotice that the conception of electromagnetic radiation as waves, is really quite arbitrary. Why waves? Can we see these "waves"? The waves are actually mathematical constructs, they help explain phenomena such as interference, diffraction, uncertainty, etc. But do these "waves" exist? The correlation between mathematics and physics is uncanny, and is a source of wonder and mystery for mathematicians and physicists alike. But i don't think it is all that mysterious. Take our example of the wave concept. It didnt just pop into our consciousness and mathematics, we observe nature through our senses, and then, through the combinatorial power of our brains, relate between our experiences and come up with concepts. We see waves in the ripples in water. And then adapt it into our mathematics and then our physics. It may not then be mysterious, but it is more wonderful.

Now if electromagnetic waves come from water waves, how about other physics concepts? Again easily explained by the combinatorial power of the brain. Take the concept of force. We first experience pushing and pulling as force. Then we imagine the force without the agent. Then we have the isolated force, F. Then to conceive of other phenomena, such as friction, gravity, normal force, centripetal forces, etc. as forces is but an intuitive leap away. If you examine the physics textbook carefully, you will see that all the concepts there are adapted from our normal experience. This is because reality is what we experience.

This brings us to question if we are trapped in our own experiences, and not really free. It really is a silly question. When people take common sense into metaphysics, they always come up with nonsense. Most of metaphysics make no sense at all. It is like this, we are a physical system, we are totally in this reality. And therefore built to function in it. By Godel's Incompleteness Theorem, a system (here reality) can only be totally understood from outside the system. Now since we are totally a system totally in reality, our mother system, we can never totally understand reality.

Let alone what is outside of it...

So you see freedom only makes sense in reality, since freedom exists as a concept in reality, in our minds. So metaphysical freedom is nonsense.

Common sense always work, but only when applied in its intended domain. Try this. Think of doing something. Then do it. There. You have free will don't you?

Now does that mean physics is a hopeless endeavor? Wait a minute, have we forgotten why we do science? Since we exist as a system in our mother system of reality, we are causally affected by it. We therefore have interest in understanding it for self-preservation. So if we can predict physics, even though we cannot explain it or really understand reality, then physics is useful. Even if we cannot understand everything, we would one day understand all that we can.

But then if we can only construct physics from our experience and creativity, won't there be some things that we cannot understand because they lie totally outside our experience? But what we cannot experience (directly or indirectly) is not reality!

Physics is just a tool to understand our reality. Who gives a damn about the real reality? It does not matter to us, we are here and now in our reality.

Sunday, February 05, 2006

the solution to cultural relativism

the problem of cultural relativism is that it impels us to accept racism, or cultures violating human rights, etc.

but cultural relativism is wrong, not all cultures are not wrong, some clearly are
and there is a hidden motive to cultural relativism too. see my previous post "cultural relativism is ethnocentrism repackaged"

i thus present to you a simple solution to this nonsense, it is not even an "idealistic" solution, it can be implemented right away, with no one's approval or consent whatsoever

so here it is:

cultural participation shall be voluntary



the universal declaration on human rights actually implies something like that:

Article 27

Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.


hehe

everyone should have the right NOT TO participate as well

and because cultures arise from the acts of their participants
culture that are oppresive and in violation of human rights will eventually die out as their participants leave them


how cool is this elegant solution?

...in the hacker spirit!