Greg Nyquist replies to Seddon

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Daniel,

I am having difficulty with your use of the term "self-contradiction."

I have made a statement:

Under condition X, Y always happens.

For some strange reason, you find mirth in this. You seem to prefer and want me to say:

Under all conditions, Y always happens.

Could you please explain where the impossibility or contradiction is in Statement 1? I can't detect it. I'll forgo the mirth, although I would like to understand that, too. But that's a minor point. Just understanding the contradiction, i.e., why Statement 1 cannot ever describe reality, would make me very happy.

Michael

[Daniel Barnes]

Michael:

>I am having difficulty with your use of the term "self-contradiction."

When you say something is infallible, this means it is impossible for it to err, under any circumstances.

By adding the qualification "under some circumstances", you contradict the meaning of the term. You create an oxymoron, which means a self contradictory term eg: I'm 100% infallible...sometimes!

Michael, the senses are just physical mechanisms like any other. So, all physical mechanisms are now "infallible" according to your special definition? See how absurd that sounds? You're just playing with words, mate.

Edited April 30, 2007 by Daniel Barnes

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

When you say something is infallible, this means it is impossible for it to err, under any circumstances.

By adding the qualification "under some circumstances", you contradict the meaning of the term. You create an oxymoron, which means a self contradictory term eg: I'm 100% infallible...sometimes!

Daniel,

Of course, this would make an airtight argument if it were true, but it isn't. I looked the term up. I used the link you provided just so I would not cave in to any bias temptations. Here is what it returned for infallible:

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)

(Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.)

1. absolutely trustworthy or sure: an infallible rule.

2. unfailing in effectiveness or operation; certain: an infallible remedy.

American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source

1. Incapable of erring: an infallible guide; an infallible source of information.

2. Incapable of failing; certain: an infallible antidote; an infallible rule.

I eliminated non-pertinent definitions and merely kept to the first 2 for the first 2 sources for brevity and applicability.

I don't see "under any circumstances" anywhere, and not even implied. This is clear in looking at the examples. "An infallible rule." A rule only applies to a certain condition or situation by definition. Only within that limit is it infallible. But let's take a typical infallible physical rule, "What goes up must come down." Obviously we are talking about being on earth (or other planet where gravity and atmosphere allow this to operate), we have a thing that is heavier than air, there is a relatively calm climate or environment (no tornadoes, for instance). Some of this might be debatable, but one thing is sure. Gravity must be present and the object must weigh more than air. We are not talking about the "infallible rule" on a spaceship in outer space. We are not talking about an added feature like life and wings. Yet on earth and for certain conditions, this rule is infallible. It always works.

Let's look at the next example, "an infallible remedy." Can you imagine where an infallible remedy would fail? I can. If the organism is so sick (either with a related or non-related illness) that the effect is neutralized, or another remedy is being taken that neutralizes the effect of the first, or... well you get the picture. So the remedy is infallible only under certain conditions.

But let's see if my phrase makes sense with substitutions.

Under condition X, Y is absolutely trustworthy

Under condition X, Y is absolutely sure

Under condition X, Y is unfailing in effectiveness

Under condition X, Y is unfailing in operation

Under condition X, Y is certain

Under condition X, Y is incapable of erring

Under condition X, Y is incapable of failing

All this means that under condition Z, Y is not unfailing or whatever. In the lack of condition X, Y is fallible. So far, I see no problem. All this is perfectly intelligible and it is merely according to the dictionary (the one you use). There is no contradiction or oxymoron anywhere with these meanings. We can do perfect, reliable, etc., like this too.

Your own meaning for this term is flawed. Insisting on your meaning in contradiction to the dictionary, and in outright denial of the logical possibility, would mean that you would not want to examine the case within the proper context. Now if you don't want to, that is something I will respect. I cannot say your meaning (or speculation) is correct, however.

Limiting an area of examination is such a scientific thing to do that I am surprised that you balk at it in identifying and evaluating the performance of a specific organ.

Michael

[Daniel Barnes]

Michael:

>For some strange reason, you find mirth in this. You seem to prefer and want me to say:

Under all conditions, Y always happens.

Er, yes...only for the extremely strange reason that this is what "infallible" means!

Ready to move on yet?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Er, yes...only for the extremely strange reason that this is what "infallible" means!

Ready to move on yet?

Actually infallible has a bit richer meaning in the dictionary than the one you have been using. Our posts crossed. Please see my post preceding yours.

So no, not ready yet. But we will get there.

Michael

[Daniel Barnes]

Michael:

>But let's take a typical infallible physical rule, "What goes up must come down."

Duh, clearly it's not an infallible rule then! Who said that it is? You?

>Can you imagine where an infallible remedy would fail? I can.

Duh, clearly it's not an infallible remedy then. And so forth. Honestly, Michael. Stop digging

Are you going to come out and say that all physical mechanisms are "infallible" yet? What's stopping you?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

>But let's take a typical infallible physical rule, "What goes up must come down."

Duh, clearly it's not an infallible rule then! Who said that it is? You?

Daniel,

I sure did. You just read it. Let me remind you.

Yet on earth and for certain conditions, this rule is infallible.

Are you going to come out and say that all physical mechanisms are "infallible" yet? What's stopping you?

Nope.

Any thoughts on the dictionary definitions? Or do you reject them?

Michael

[Dragonfly]

Daniel, didn't you know that Objectivists are inveterate Humpty-Dumptyists?

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less."

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Facts are infallible. They inevitably are what they are and do what they do. They never fail to be what they are and do what they do, either. They are 100% absolutely, totally, completely, without any doubt whatsoever, utterly, conclusively, indubitably and fully reliable. Er... always.

Even if such a fact is a sense organ.

And even if a principle is extracted of what constitutes a healthy sense organ based on observing countless similar sense organs (facts). But here we get into knowledge and evaluation, not just facts. Still, without infallible facts, such knowledge and evaluation will be arbitrary.

Now, the use of a sense organ by an organism is conditional to many things, starting with the organism being alive.

Michael

[Daniel Barnes]

Dragonfly:

>Daniel, didn't you know that Objectivists are inveterate Humpty-Dumptyists?

Yes, as I recently remarked on my own site, Rand sometimes reminds me of something once said about Gertrude Stein: "Gertrude doesn't seem to know what words mean."

Max Eastman once wrote an essay on Stein, called "The Cult of Unintelligibility". While aimed at the moderns, some of what he says is also captures Randian pedantry and obscurantism to a tee:

"...Miss Stein is emptying words of the social element. Words are vessels of communion; she is treating them as empty vessels, polishing them and setting them in a row."

Edited April 30, 2007 by Daniel Barnes

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Daniel,

As I pointed out above, sensory data is not knowledge. It is merely a building block for knowledge.

Sensory data falls in between fact and knowledge.

And we are going to have to agree to disagree about the dictionary definitions. Your post does not touch on my reasons. But I don't mind if you ignore them and talk about used cars.

Michael

[Daniel Barnes]

(whoops, appear to have accidentally deleted my own post. here it is again, now slightly out of order)

Michael:

>Any thoughts on the dictionary definitions? Or do you reject them?

Michael, the definitions in the dictionary don't support what you're saying at all.

1. absolutely trustworthy or sure: an infallible rule.

2. unfailing in effectiveness or operation; certain: an infallible remedy.

3. not fallible; exempt from liability to error, as persons, their judgment, or pronouncements: an infallible principle.

4. Roman Catholic Church. immune from fallacy or liability to error in expounding matters of faith or morals by virtue of the promise made by Christ to the Church.

–noun

5. an infallible person or thing.

Show me where it says anything like: "infallible: does not err, except in some situations."

You're clutching at straws, man.

But look - just to make things interesting, let's grant you your peculiar usage. Let's call this complex physical mechanism, the eye, "infallible" because it works well most of the time, and only errs now and again "under certain circumstances."

Now let's take another complex physical mechanism, a used car. This works well most of the time too, and only errs "under certain circumstances."

Now for some reason, you're extremely keen to call the eye "infallible", but extremely reluctant to describe the used car as such.

Why, I wonder?

>Facts are infallible.

Yes, and as you know, they are quite different from knowledge! Shall I remind you of why:

1) Facts, and knowledge of them, are two different things. The difference is that

2) Facts are absolute and not contextual

3) Knowledge, in contrast, is contextual and not absolute.

[Daniel Barnes]

Michael:

>And we are going to have to agree to disagree about the dictionary definitions.

Ok. Great!

>Your post does not touch on my reasons. But I don't mind if you ignore them and talk about used cars.

Are you going to answer my question?

Let me repeat it:

The eye is a complex physical mechanism that works well but can err under certain circumstances. A used car is a complex physical mechanism that also works well, but can err under certain circumstances.

Now for some reason, you're extremely keen to call the eye "infallible", but extremely reluctant to describe the used car as such.

Why, I wonder?

[Dragonfly]

As I pointed out above, sensory data is not knowledge. It is merely a building block for knowledge.

Oh my, is it really that difficult? Building blocks in themselves can't be fallible or infallible, as the word is meaningless in such an absolute context. Fallible or infallible refers to a comparison between input and output, between a stated goal and the achieved result, in other words to a process. So you have to specify what the purpose of those building block is, in this case knowledge about the physical world. And the process of converting sensory data to knowledge about the world is most definitely fallible.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Daniel,

I have to do this tomorrow. But here is something to sleep on.

The eye is a metaphysical fact—the given. A car is man-made metaphysical fact based on human knowledge.

Big difference.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

And the process of converting sensory data to knowledge about the world is most definitely fallible.

Daniel,

Not with a healthy sense organ under normal conditions (no illness, no exhaustion, no deforming like squishing). I dare you to find one that does it incorrectly.

Interestingly enough, you say that fallible and infallible now deal with input and output and not conversion? Hmmmmmm...

Your meaning gets more and more interesting.

Michael

[Daniel Barnes]

>Daniel,

>Your meaning gets more and more interesting.

You mean Dragonfly

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

>Daniel,

>Your meaning gets more and more interesting.

You mean Dragonfly

Dayaamm!!

Sorry Dragonfly.

At least we can agree that I am not infallible...

Michael

[Dragonfly]

And the process of converting sensory data to knowledge about the world is most definitely fallible.

Daniel,

Not with a healthy sense organ under normal conditions (no illness, no exhaustion, no deforming like squishing). I dare you to find one that does it incorrectly.

Ah, now you make the switch from "fallible" to "incorrectly", which is not the same. Making errors does not imply that the result is useless. As long as the errors are small enough and/or rare enough the system may fulfill its function, but that doesn't mean that it is infallible. There is no doubt that the eye in general is a very useful system. But you can't conclude from that that it is perfect and infallible! From an optical viewpoint the eye is in fact a rather poor system. It is the clever machinery and software of the brain that creates the illusion of a perfect view. For practical purposes that is in general good enough, just as a used car is in general good enough for practical purposes. There is a world of difference between "good enough" and "infallible" however.

Interestingly enough, you say that fallible and infallible now deal with input and output and not conversion? Hmmmmmm...

Let me tell you a secret: if you convert something, you put something into a system (the converter) and after conversion the system delivers something. That what we put into the system we call the "input" and that what comes out of the system after conversion we call the "output". Surprising, isn't it?

[Dragonfly]

The eye is a metaphysical fact—the given. A car is man-made metaphysical fact based on human knowledge.

Have you become religious? If it is man-made it is fallible and if it is made by God it is infallible?

Or do you think that the product of evolution is necessarily infallible but that only the product of the product of evolution can be fallible?

To use your terms: "the brain is a metaphysical fact - the given" (if the eye is, why not the brain?). So the brain is infallible?

Your meaning gets more and more interesting...

Edited April 30, 2007 by Dragonfly

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Let me tell you a secret: if you convert something, you put something into a system (the converter) and after conversion the system delivers something. That what we put into the system we call the "input" and that what comes out of the system after conversion we call the "output". Surprising, isn't it?

Dragonfly,

As far as I can tell, nothing is output through the eye. It is an organ of input. We have been discussing the part, not the system. My contention is that under normal circumstances and with a healthy eye, what is input is perfectly converted data captured from reality.

Where we are talking past each other is that I am only talking about such data as received and converted. I get the impression you want it to convert more data than it does, and convert it differently. But then that steps outside of what is real. The eyeball as it evolved is real. We can modify one that exists through surgery or we can build devices to expand its capacity or reinterpret data, but we cannot redo the fact that it exists as it does and that it works perfectly for what it was evolved to do.

We build through abstraction, not through sensory evidence alone. What we abstract is sensory evidence. If that evidence is corrupted, the abstraction loses validity. And here we seem to have different focuses on defining context. I put a great deal of importance on determining the essential nature of a sense organ according to its operation under normal circumstances and in good health. I do not consider the fact that it can become ill and so forth as a part of its essential operation when healthy.

The argument, after cutting off the rhetoric, seems to be that because an eye can become ill (and the other conditions I mentioned several times) and not perform correctly, it might not perform correctly when healthy. In other words, because there are some situations where it will not perform correctly, there are no situations where it will perform correctly. There is an innate defect or margin of error built in to its operation so that it never attains absolutely correct performance.

This is where I disagree. The sense data, being right on the edge (being the interface) between knowledge and external fact has one foot in fact and the other foot in the entire mental processing. The foot in fact is what gives it reliability.

Now the entire system (the mind), though abstraction, can make mistakes with this data for any number of reasons. I believe that is why the system has hard and fast internal rules toward mathematics and deduction—to keep the relationship between the data and the entity(ies) perceived as precise as possible.

Once again, sense data does not tell a mind what exists. It only tells the mind that it exists from the standpoint of one attribute only. Sense data is perfect for this function.

The eye is a metaphysical fact—the given. A car is man-made metaphysical fact based on human knowledge.

Have you become religious? If it is man-made it is fallible and if it is made by God it is infallible?

Or do you think that the product of evolution is necessarily infallible but that only the product of the product of evolution can be fallible?

To use your terms: "the brain is a metaphysical fact - the given" (if the eye is, why not the brain?). So the brain is infallible?

You missed the point. Without intervention, the functioning of the eye cannot be any different than it already is. It developed to identify entities, not measure them according to criteria later established by the mind. That would be putting the brain in front of the sense organ. A sense organ is part of the brain's system. The brain processes the information from the sense organ. This does not happen the other way around. The sense organ does not process input from the brain.

A man-made system like a car has many variables that are beyond human control. As you yourself acknowledge, facts are absolute but knowledge of them is partial (contextual). This has nothing to do with God.

Michael

[Daniel Barnes]

Michael:

>A man-made system like a car has many variables that are beyond human control.

Please. The human eye is far more complex than a car. Ask yourself: who has the harder job, the garage mechanic or the eye surgeon? Your argument is becoming increasingly ad hoc.

But let's bend over backwards, and go with this latest qualification. Seeing you want to confer "infalliblity" only on the "metaphysically given" and not the man made, how about the human leg? Is that "infallible" too?

But an artifical leg...that is fallible?!!!

Michael, you're tying yourself up in knots. The fact that you have to introduce a new qualification to your claim every time someone raises a counterexample means that your claim is increasingly weak. And your initial claim was self-contradictory to begin with!

I'm going to suggest my alternative hypothesis again.

Your theory that the senses are infallible is actually what you'd call a 3rd level "knowledge". It is a proposition, formed in your mind, containing concepts expressed in language. However, as you rightly say, the mind, through abstraction, can make mistakes. One of the ways we detect those mistakes is through logical contradiction, though we can always try to paper over such problems by "playing with words".

I say once more: the fact that your theory starts from an oxymoron, and you have to keep inventing vague qualifications ad hoc to keep it afloat (like suddenly adding "metaphysically given") is signalling that your mind has made a mistake - your theory is probably false.

You should by now be at least open to this possibility.

Edited April 30, 2007 by Daniel Barnes

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Michael:

>A man-made system like a car has many variables that are beyond human control.

Please. The human eye is far more complex than a car. Ask yourself: who has the harder job, the garage mechanic or the eye surgeon?

Daniel,

You switched again. We are talking about a creator with a car. With th eye, are you talking about God? I wasn't.

Michael

[Daniel Barnes]

Michael:

>You switched again. We are talking about a creator with a car. With th eye, are you talking about God? I wasn't.

I "switched" nothing. I've never mentioned God either. You've never explained why a mechanism's "metaphysical" origin guarantees its "infallibility". You just introduced it in what seems to be an arbitrary fashion.

If it's not arbitrary, let's hear whether other human organs, like the leg, or the heart are "infallible" or not, according to you.

What is it, Mike?

Edited April 30, 2007 by Daniel Barnes

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Daniel,

If you agree, let's try a different approach, since we are not accepting each other's standards.

Let's always answer the question: "By what standard," in analyzing the words of the other.

I have no wish to get you to say you believe in something when you do not, and I don't think that is your intention as regards me, either. I am certainly not playing any game of one-upmanship with this discussion (except for the banter about definitions). I see you play this seriously sometimes, but I ultimately don't think this is where you are coming from.

So if you say "infallible," or I say "infallible," we must define the context and try to understand the meaning instead of immediately trying to debunk the other.

Let's start with you. If we remove context altogether and take infallible to mean "in all cases at all times, past future and present, and in all places of the universe," we will only find that the fundamental axioms are infallible. Not only is this or that thing fallible according to this standard, everything is fallible except for the fact that it exists, has an identity and can be known (when there is a consciousness around). But even then, a thing changes over billions of years so much that even these axioms become meaningless (although technically true).

I have been using a more restricted definition of this term and it is valid to do so (as has been amply discussed). You don't accept that this word can have the meaning I use. OK. But at least accept the fact that we are talking about two different things and that we are both talking in good will.

No, I am not a Randroid and I will not stubbornly cling to dogma. Trying to push me there will never work. I hope that is clear.

And no, you are not a death-worshiping evading subjectivist/intrinsicist maniac intent on destroying human knowledge and all of reality or whatever. That is clear to me and I have no wish to push you there.

Actually, I believe many of our premises are identical—we just use different words for them.

So about the leg, etc. A leg is not infallible "in all cases at all times, past future and present, and in all places of the universe," starting with the fact that, when it works, it is attached to an organism that eventually dies.

However, as an entity (or more precisely, part of an entity) and within the context of health and normal circumstances, a leg will always work for walking. So in that sense, it is infallible. When it doesn't work, this is an indication that the situation has changed and signals a problem to be addressed. Without the initial infallibility, (or call it "correct metaphysical operation" or something like that if you don't like the term "infallible" here), there can be no identification of when there is a problem.

What really needs to be addressed so we stop talking past each other is the two types knowledge and why they exist: philosophical and scientific.

Are you operating under the conceit that scientific information inevitably invalidates philosophical information and blasts the need for philosophy out of existence? Or do you hold, as I do, that both can be in agreement and that either can invalidate the other by uncovering contradictions? Or do you hold, as Nyquist does, that there is no such thing as inductive knowledge because there is no such thing as induction?

Michael