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Effectronica posted:In the first case, beliefs are invisible to evolution, which can only select for behaviors, so there is a low probability that our beliefs are true. Beliefs are behaviours. Despite the way we talk about them, beliefs aren't possessions. They're not properties. To say we have a particular belief is to say we think a certain pattern, and thinking is a doing. Behaviour.
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Aug 16, 2015 06:10
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Effectronica posted:Okay! How does natural selection act on the phenotype produced by thinking in a certain way, while still forbidding telepathy? That is, how can natural selection distinguish between thinking "Brightly-colored animals are dangerous" and "Brightly-colored animals are cuddly" without any corresponding actions to act on, while still preventing us from reading minds without taking a peek at them? I... I have no idea how to begin responding to this. It is, as they say, "not even wrong." I can only try, I guess. For a start, I don't think you know what a phenotype is. It is the composite of an organism's observable traits, not an observable trait. Secondly, I don't know what you mean by 'forbidding' or 'preventing' telepathy. You write as if natural selection has a will of its own. Third, what the hell does "without any corresponding actions to act on" mean? Fourth, and I think this goes to the heart of this abortion of a thread, why the hell would natural selection operate on beliefs at all except insofar as they influence an organism's capacity to reproduce?
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Aug 16, 2015 15:25
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Effectronica posted:You said, "Smudgie Buggler", that beliefs are behaviors, that they contribute to the phenotype of an organism. Therefore, it must be possible to distinguish, externally, between the phenotypes produced by different beliefs, in order for natural selection to act on them. Again, you do not have a firm enough grasp of what a phenotype is. quote:However, since telepathy is not real, it must similarly be impossible to peek inside someone's brain without directly observing it. Similarly to what? The verb 'peek' implies observation, so I guess this is basically right. But entirely irrelevant. quote:In addition, natural selection must be able to act in the absence of actions corresponding to the belief, in order for this to be true. In order for... telepathy to be impossible? Or for it to be impossible to look inside someone's brain without looking inside their brain? Your argument is missing some premises. quote:In other words, even if I never act on my belief that brightly-colored frogs are cuddly by actually touching them, natural selection should still be able to quash this maladaptive belief, no? No. Firstly, there is nothing in the belief that brightly coloured frogs are cuddly to 'act on.' It is not normative. Secondly, that belief is not necessarily maladaptive, and NS doesn't give a poo poo about it if it isn't. Evolution is simply the tendency of traits that aid or have no effect on replication to replicate, and traits that hinder replication not to replicate. Our beliefs are tuned for survival and sex, not accuracy. The true stupidity of all this is that you think that fact defeats naturalism as it gives us cause to doubt it, when naturalism itself gives us better reasons to doubt naturalism than the observation that infallibility has not been aggressively selected for. quote:But of course, you started from the premise that this was a stupid thread made by an idiot, because you disagreed with it, and that your towering intellect would lay down the law and crush the heretic. This is bad enough, but it also turns out that you're not all that smart, either. This, at least, is what I can conclude from seeing your assumptions on display. I would suggest not embarrassing yourself any further. You are basically the pissiest little twerp in this subforum, currently basking in this fever-dream of a thread which consists of nothing more than you doing an incredibly poor job of ripping off a philosopher who is essentially Ned Flanders' bookish older brother and other posters trying to decipher your turgid prose and exercising remarkable restraint in explaining why you sound so ridiculous. So forgive me if I scoff that the idea that there's anybody embarrassing themselves here but you. Smudgie Buggler fucked around with this message at 02:04 on Aug 17, 2015 |
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Aug 16, 2015 19:43
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Effectronica posted:Wow. All the people who got mad because I used binary true/false as a simplification, and here they are ignoring you using it as the centerpiece of an argument that amounts to assertions. As opposed to all the arguments that don't amount to a string of assertions?
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Aug 17, 2015 02:02
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Effectronica posted:Okay, so your argument is that we don't perceive reality accurately. Very well then. I disagree, but there's not much that can bridge that gap. It's demonstrably the case that we are, by our own standards of accuracy, extremely bad at mentally modelling reality. I mean, what the gently caress do you think the map - or any other piece of technology assisting the gathering or storage of information - is for?
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Aug 17, 2015 02:17
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Effectronica posted:Actually, people who live in cultures where maps are not used maintain internal maps with high accuracy of the areas with which they are familiar. Tools like the map or writing are ones that allow for easier transmission of knowledge before they allow for higher precision. Pure conjecture. Astonishing, though, that people who can't rely on tools that substitute for proficiency in a particular mental skill get better at those skills. That doesn't mean they've got an accurate model of their environment in their heads. It means they've got a very useful one. Also, whatever accuracy it may have, it pales in comparison to what can be accomplished with some relatively simple surveying tools and a pencil. Which would still, in the grand scheme of things, be only the tiniest of tiny fractions less accurate a depiction of whatever slice of reality it modelled than the most accurate map humans are capable of producing. Accuracy is illusory. Name a belief you have that you think is truly accurate, and why.
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Aug 17, 2015 02:51
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Effectronica posted:Well, unfortunately, we only have written records because of the march of history, so I am unable to satisfy your belief in your superiority, no matter how you cloak it by ripping a bong and gasping, "Accuracy is illusory". I can tell you that your post implies that writing and mapping emerged, like Pallas Athena, fully formed from the head of Zeus, which is hilarious, but surely even you wouldn't mean that. Whatever happened to you that made you this way, I sincerely wish it hadn't because it must have been pretty horrid.
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Aug 17, 2015 04:31
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waitwhatno posted:Could some philosophy degree carrying goon make a quick public statement and distance themselves from this thread? I feel like this thread is a character assassination on every philosophy department in the world. Saying what, exactly? Nobody can speak for the whole of academia on things like this. The best you can do is try to explain why it's stupid. Which is what is already happening, with varying degrees of earnestness and thought. Someone scanning and uploading their testamur isn't going the improve this generally lovely experience.
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Aug 17, 2015 16:11
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ShadowCatboy posted:Philosophy doesn't operate at the "high level" of reasoning (if you're a programmer, think coding language). It operates at the "low level" of trying to delve into more fundamental truths about knowledge and reality (think machine code). You really mean this? There's an assertion about how philosophy is done, another about what it is, and an exceptionally flawed analogy tying them together, all in one neat little package. If someone said they'd pay me to come up with the quickest the way to send a room full of philosophers into frenzied outrage in 40 words of less, I'd come back with something pretty similar to those two quoted sentences. Smudgie Buggler fucked around with this message at 18:09 on Aug 18, 2015 |
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Aug 18, 2015 18:05
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 22:25 |
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The appearance of design is not by chance. It's evolutionarily advantageous for us to identify. reify, and recreate certain kinds of patterns. That things look designed to us is a function of our having the kinds of brains that allow us to design things. It has nothing to do with how things actually are. We are locked into an extraordinarily narrow interpretive framework.
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Aug 20, 2015 14:13
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