Why does man need a code of values?

[Daniel Barnes]

Victor:

>It must be emphasized—as Rand herself did—she is an Aristotelian philosopher.

Yes, this is what is largely wrong with her. She tries to run her intellectual software on Aristotle's antique, buggy, clapped out old OS. Contra standard Objectivist mythology, Aristotle's thought is basically inimical to science, and studying the real world. Aristotle himself, while interested in biology, was a rather lazy philosopher in most respects, who made easily testable pronouncements but never bothered test them in the real world himself. (It took hundreds of years - until Galileo - before anyone bothered to forget proceeding from first premises and actually check out Aristotle's theory regarding falling weights, or whether an arrow follows an arc or a right angle.) Ironically, Aristotle's "essentialist" method leads to sterile scholasticism and fruitless debates over words, and the very detachment from reality Rand deplores. The fact that Rand employs it at an epistemological rather than metaphysical level makes not a whit of difference to this situation. IMO Rand's Aristotelianism accounts for much of Objectivism's oft lamented lack of production any field - science, aesthetics, politics, you name it. As I often say, 50 years since "Atlas Shrugged" and what is there to show for it, really? However in contrast there is a vast amount of blab - endless seminars, conferences, tapes, books, internet discussions, etc about what, say, "true art" should be, windy think-pieces about what "true science" should be - but in reality bugger-all actual art and bugger-all actual science ever emerges. This is Aristotelian scholasticism writ large - as Popper puts it, always sharpening your pencil, but never getting around to writing anything. If Objectivism managed to get rid of Aristotle, as the West managed to duriing the Middle Ages, it might equally manage to get out of the Middle Ages too...

Edited March 26, 2007 by Daniel Barnes

[Daniel Barnes]

Michael:

>Whether or not it is illogical is debatable depending on whose definition of logic you use and whether pattern identification is excluded from logic as defined. Be that as it may, when you ask people to establish ethics from facts by using logic, in essence, you are asking them to deduce ethics from facts. Correct?

To be precise, logically determining ethical decisions (or any decisions) from facts is what Rand is claiming to have done. Yet she provides no actual demonstration of this - she just asserts this is what she has done. Hence I have been challenging those who believe she has resolved this dualism to provide such a demonstration. Victor, to his credit, has at least stepped up to the challenge, albeit unsuccessfully. This is still better than the responses from Laure or Darrell, who respectively claim that either illogical positions are fine if one "introspects" suitably, or appeal to some unspecified system of "reasoning" other than logic to justify their belief (whilst still dressing their claims up in ordinary logical terminology)

>btw - Last night I read an online essay by Popper (and I intend to reread it today or tomorrow to make sure I understood it correctly, The Problem of Induction. I will comment later, but for now, I am confused by what his criteria for concept formation is and what his idea of a concept is.

Popper does not have a theory of concept formation. Perhaps you are thinking of Ayn Rand. His idea of a "concept" is basically "a general idea", just like the dictionary would have it.

Popper regards concepts, and thus philosophic disciplines such as conceptual analysis and its follow-on, linguistic analysis as basically unimportant. He regards focussing on them as an intellectual mistake, as concepts, or the words that represent them, cannot be judged true or false for purely logical reasons. Such analysis thus always ends in arguments over the meaning of words, instead of the truth or falsity of theories. He recommends replacing such debates with debates over theories, plans, statements, proposals, propositions etc which at least can be logically - and experimentally - decidable.

>This is not discussed, however he talks a great deal about knowledge. There are 2 other essays by him on that page that I have not read, "Knowledge without Authority" and "Two Kinds of Definitions," so concept formation might be covered in those.

Now, it just so happens his "Two Kinds of Definitions" essay is one of the best pieces ever written outlining the problems of verbalist analysis, and Popper's solution to these problems. It is an adaption of his crucial Chapter 11 in his "The Open Society And Its Enemies" on Aristotle's influence, and while it lacks the massive footnotes from the original which contain some of the finer points of his argument, it lays the situation out with his usual merciless clarity.

>I find it amusing that according to Popper's reasoning, the concept of the whole field of science itself is untrue because it cannot be falsified.

But Popper does not argue this at all! I do not believe you will find a passage anywhere, in all his works, that claims anything , let alone science, is "untrue because it cannot be falsified." He suggests that what cannot be falsified is probably not scientific. This is called his famous "criterion of demarcation." I suggest you revisit the piece,as you have got the wrong end of the stick with this, and therefore the below:

>(We have to be careful to not let Popper prove that science doesn't exist at all.)

>Surprisingly, I liked the principle of transference a lot, even though Popper used it to try to remove the legitimacy of induction. More later on that.

Yes, Popper rocks.

[Laure]

...This is still better than the responses from Laure or Darrell, who respectively claim that either illogical positions are fine if one "introspects" suitably, or appeal to some unspecified system of "reasoning" other than logic to justify their belief (whilst still dressing their claims up in ordinary logical terminology)

So Daniel, do you believe that there is no method of reasoning that is not equivalent to deductive logic???? You make this snide remark about introspection as if introspection (looking inside yourself) is not a valid way of gaining knowledge. How the hell else do you gain knowledge about anything except by starting out LOOKING at it? or listening to it, touching it, tasting it, etc? We are talking here about how we get our propositions for propositional logic in the first place. Where do the P's come from? The fact that they are observed rather than deduced logically does not make them "illogical." If I tell Spock, "I am going for a hike, it's sunny out, etc, therefore I will put on sunscreen" he doesn't say "That's illogical, how do you know you're going for a hike?"

You are showing your true colors by saying that concepts are not important. They are the most crucial thing there is!! Every word of every post that you make stands for a CONCEPT. And concepts are formed, not solely through deductive logic, but through observation of the world around us, observation of our own inner states, and induction. If that's "illogical", then to borrow your phrase, "you're not going to get very far."

[Victor Pross]

Laure,

What has happened is what I thought. I said somewhere that the ethics debate was going to swing back to epistemology. And I described the participants—I, you, and Darrell— as standing on one side of the Grand Canyon epistemologically separated from Daniel and whoever else.

That’s why I asked those certain questions on the “Life as a Standard” thread to gain a much better understanding of his intellectual approach that is the source of his conclusions in ethics. For example, if you take the Hume approach and regard causality as a forever unknowable construct ---and not as “causality proceeding from identity” then you conclude a is-ought dichotomy. And what’s more, Daniel has declared himself a determinist. What becomes of ethics when you take that approach?

Victor

Edited March 29, 2007 by Victor Pross

[bmacwilliam]

“causality proceeding from identity”

And that has got to be at or near the top of the list of the most ridiculous ideas in Objectivism.

Bob

Edited March 29, 2007 by Bob_Mac

[Laure]

Yep, Victor, it all comes down to epistemology.

[Victor Pross]

“causality proceeding from identity”

And that has got to be at or near the top of the list of the most ridiculous ideas in Objectivism.

Bob

Bob,

Not at all. I will write a post later tonight explaining the Objectivist approach to causality (as it pertains to ethics), and it is a very reasonable approach---very reasonable indeed. It does put Hume in his place and makes trash of the is-ought split. :turned:

-Victor

[bmacwilliam]

“causality proceeding from identity”

And that has got to be at or near the top of the list of the most ridiculous ideas in Objectivism.

Bob

Bob,

Not at all. I will write a post later tonight explaining the Objectivist approach to causality (as it pertains to ethics), and it is a very reasonable approach---very reasonable indeed. It does put Hume in his place and makes trash of the is-ought split. :turned:

-Victor

Causality is one thing, but to say that it "proceeds" from identity is nonsensical.

Bob

[Victor Pross]

“causality proceeding from identity”

And that has got to be at or near the top of the list of the most ridiculous ideas in Objectivism.

Bob

Bob,

Not at all. I will write a post later tonight explaining the Objectivist approach to causality (as it pertains to ethics), and it is a very reasonable approach---very reasonable indeed. It does put Hume in his place and makes trash of the is-ought split. :turned:

-Victor

Causality is one thing, but to say that it "proceeds" from identity is nonsensical.

Bob

Bob,

I am curious now. What is your definition and idea of ‘causality’ then? You make these brash claims and leave it hanging. I, in the very least, when pressed for time, inform that I will back up my points soon.

-Victor

[Daniel Barnes]

I realised I left a couple of posts unanswered, so before I take off:

First Laure wrote:

>So Daniel, do you believe that there is no method of reasoning that is not equivalent to deductive logic????

I assume your double negative is accidental ie that there is no method of reasoning that is equivalent to deductive logic.

No. I know of none that is equivalent to it. There are lots of different human intellectual qualities; imagination, intuition, memory,etc. None that does the same job logic does - that is, help us test the internal consistency of our theories before we road test them empirically in the real world.

>You make this snide remark about introspection as if introspection (looking inside yourself) is not a valid way of gaining knowledge.

I pointed out that the circularity of Rand's argument makes it a logical fallacy. Your answer to this was that this fallacy is ok, because you "introspectively" decided it was fine anyway. I am, it is true, rather dismissive of this type of argument, as logical fallacies are not overcome by your "introspective" say-so. Sorry!

>How the hell else do you gain knowledge about anything except by starting out LOOKING at it? or listening to it, touching it, tasting it, etc?

But this is observation, not introspection!

>We are talking here about how we get our propositions for propositional logic in the first place. Where do the P's come from? The fact that they are observed rather than deduced logically does not make them "illogical."

This is the whole point of Hume's discussion, Laure. Put in its most simple form: We have experiences, but how is it that we make sense of them? Then, crucially, how do our experiences then go on to form our expectations? How does logic fit in with this? The answer is suprising.

But I think you should look into the problem for yourself, as obviously I am not persuading you of my case. It is a little complex, but not too bad. Why should important things be necessarily simple anyway?

>You are showing your true colors by saying that concepts are not important. They are the most crucial thing there is!!

Well, I am challenging this dogma! I contend that discussing or analysing concepts is not important, because they cannot be logically decided to be true or false. Thus the conversation will waffle on in a style reminiscent of the Middle Ages, as so much of what passes for modern philosophy does. Objectivism is far closer to modern philosophies like Linguistic Analysis than it realises, you know!

>Every word of every post that you make stands for a CONCEPT.

And that is precisely why we should avoid arguments over concepts, as it leads inexorably to empty arguments over the meanings of words, and arguments over the meanings of words are not logically decidable as true or false. Words, entirely contra Rand, are conventions. Things aren't created with little labels hidden on the underside with their names on them! If you want to settle debates over the meanings of words, just use a dictionary. That's what they're for.

>And concepts are formed, not solely through deductive logic, but through observation of the world around us, observation of our own inner states, and induction. If that's "illogical", then to borrow your phrase, "you're not going to get very far."

Well, yes but all philosophical arguments are about how these things all fit together! Because it sounds alright when you put it this vaguely. But when people started to look at this closely, starting thousands of years ago, they noticed that the above elements clashed in important places. This lead to the development of philosophical problems. It's not some fairy story of goodies and baddies, locked in mortal philosophical struggle, you know. It's about trying to resolve the deep clashes that result from what seems at first, just as you put it above, such a seemingly simple combination of elements.

Anyway, enough of that for now. I will leave you with another suitably outrageous and heretical notion to ponder: that instead of us developing our theories after observation, as tradiitional notions of induction had it, we actually have to have a theory before we can make an observation!

A brief story to ilustrate. Popper used to open his classes by telling his students that today they were going to learn about induction, the idea that we develop our theories from observed experience. He then told his class they were going to put it into practice - with which he commanded them to "Observe!" He would then return to his desk. Puzzled silence would result. Eventually, someone would always raise their hand and say:"Excuse me sir...but observe what?"

Now, to Victor:

>And what’s more, Daniel has declared himself a determinist. What becomes of ethics when you take that approach?

Actually, I wrote, Post #35, back on the "Life as Standard" thread:

"I am not a strict determinist."

Duh! But I forgive you, as you know not what you say.

Edited March 30, 2007 by Daniel Barnes

[Laure]

Daniel, just to clarify, my double-negative was intentional. I was asking you to draw a Venn diagram of Reasoning and Logic, and tell me if it's just one circle or if the Logic circle is inside the Reasoning circle. Just so that's clear.

I don't have any comments on the rest of your post; I really am starting to wonder what your point is. You started out wanting to prove to everybody that Rand didn't solve the "is-ought" problem, thus convincing me even more firmly that she did solve it. That's about all that's been accomplished here.

[bmacwilliam]

You started out wanting to prove to everybody that Rand didn't solve the "is-ought" problem, thus convincing me even more firmly that she did solve it. That's about all that's been accomplished here.

Then do it! Put up or shut up. Outline a deductive argument that proceeds from descriptive to prescriptive.

Go ahead try it.

Bob

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Then do it! Put up or shut up. Outline a deductive argument that proceeds from descriptive to prescriptive.

Go ahead try it.

Bob,

Er... I actually did it (by including the agent and induction). The problem is that Hume's problem is only one half of the problem. I discussed that here. I was even gratified to come to some kind of agreement about induction with Daniel Barnes here, where I further stated:

Can "ought" be derived from "is" with deductive logic alone? No.

Can "ought" be derived from "is" with deductive logic predicated on induction? Yes.

To be absolutely clear, I should have included some mention of the agent in my formulation above. It would better read as the following:

Can "ought" be derived from "is" with deductive logic predicated on induction added to the "is" of the agent? Yes.

But for the record, I want to mention a misuse of Hume's argument, and this is what I personally object to (very strenuously, in fact). Let's do this by analogy to be clear. Let's use the following substitutions:

Deriving "ought" from "is" = Washing a car.

Deduction = Hose.

Induction and the "is" of the agent = Water.

If one states that you can wash a car with a hose, he has to mean that the water is turned on. Obviously of the water is off, the car will not get washed with that hose.

Now here is the misuse. Hume's problem leaves out half of what is needed to be valid problem, but even if it were, it cannot be solved with only half of what reality demands. But the result is that some people then take such impossibility to mean that the problem cannot be solved at all. They in effect say that since you cannot wash a car with a hose that has no water coming out, you cannot wash cars with hoses at all. Then this extends to "hoses don't wash cars" and even "water doesn't wash cars." Then to "there is no causal relationship (for washing) between 'car' and 'hose.'" Thus they are completely different.

This kind of logic runs me up a tree.

So while we can agree that the rules of deductive logic alone will not derive an "ought" from a single "is," once the nature of the agent and the inductive base of the elements that the rules of logic manipulate are factored in, the derivation becomes very clear.

To go even further for clarity, put it this way: there can be no deductive logic without a mind to think it, so you cannot leave out that mind in any formulation about reality (identifying an "is") without stepping outside the bounds of reality. An "is" cannot be thought about without a mind to think it.

All you can do to make Hume's problem a real problem is to pretend that the set of rules of deductive logic is some kind of metaphysical absolute that exists separately from the mind. The moment you accept a mind as the container and handler for the rules, you have a second "is."

The simple fact is that there can never be a single "is" with logic, deductive or otherwise. The "is" of the agent using the logic is always involved, even if only by implication. Here is my formulation:

Logic + Single "is" only = Outside of reality

If you wish to present Hume's problem as something to contemplate, but something that is outside of reality, I have no objection. If you wish to claim that Hume's problem is situated within reality, I claim that he left too much out to be so considered.

Michael

[Darrell Hougen]

It is like the issue of emergencies. Emergencies are not the normal condition of human existence, so even if Objectivism were to fall completely on its face in emergency situations, which it doesn't, it would be of almost no interest to the construction of a proper ethics which handles the myriad of realistic everyday situations with which people are faced.

Rand's ideas about emergencies are a typical cop-out. It is especially in such situations that an ethics theory is to be tested. Don't forget that what we, living in wealth, comfort and peace in our western world at this moment, consider to be emergencies, is and has been in the course of the centuries the normal situation for millions of people. During the 2nd world war my mother has spent several years in a Japanese POW camp. The stories she told me made crystal clear that in such situations you really learn what the morality of your co-prisoners is. What use is an ethics theory that dismisses such situations as "not normal"? It's a fair-weather ethics.

Much of the history of ethical thought has dealt with the morality of desparate situations --- war, natural disasters, etc. What is needed is a morality for everyday life. Would you argue that no fair-weather ethcs is required? Objectivism handles both situations correctly.

Darrell

[Darrell Hougen]

Darrell:

>I'm not giving a misleading impression because the reasoning that I am using is logically valid. Perhaps we are having a misunderstanding over the terminology we are using.

No, this is not a terminological misunderstanding. You are simply alternating between appealing to standard deductive logic, then denying you are appealing to it when logic's conclusions don't suit you. To add confusion, while you deny you're using standard logic, you nonetheless use standard logical terms like "logically valid". This gives, as I have pointed out, an entirely false impression.

This is simply not true. Actually, this whole discussion is a distraction from the real issue, the argument for life as the standard of value. What we are having is a meta-level discussion about the correct form of logical argumentation. You are arguing that only deductive arguments are valid. I'm saying that any non-contradictory identification of the facts of reality is valid. Such identification may require various generalizations. If it appears that I have flip-flopped, it is only because I have attempted to adjust my usage of deduction to be consistent with yours. However, identifying the branch of logic to which an argument belongs is a difficult issue that I would prefer to eschew for the time being. I would therefore ask that you address the argument for life as the standard of value directly and drop this line of argumentation. If you have a specific problem with either Rand's argument or my argument, please point it out.

Darrell

[Darrell Hougen]

Victor:

>But this question comes to mind: would any “rationalized course of action” succeed in maintaining life?

Fortunately you need not worry, because your definition of "maintaining life" is broad enough to include its opposite!

Here's the issue - which incidentally should answer Michael Kelly's recent objection simultaneously.

Rand is trying to present a logical justification for her ethical system - an answer to the question, "What is the justification for being an Objectivist?" Because, she answers, you need this ethical system to "live", as in "survive".

But obviously this "life" as mere "survival" raises a host of obvious objections, one of which is suicide, others of which include "prudent predator" objections, questions of the priorities of loved ones vs your own etc etc. So Rand equivocates, and later in the text replaces her straight forward "survival" formulation with one of "man qua man." This "man qua man" is entirely vague, and thus allows someone to define it any which way they choose. In Rand's case, she basically defines living as "man qua man" as being an Objectivist, and subscribing to Objectivist values and ethics.

But this is supposed to be the very position she is trying to justify. To wit: You should be an Objectivist, because being an Objectivist is what you should be. In other words, her argument, as Laure correctly notes is circular, so it is a fallacy. (Laure doesn't seem to care about this, which is fine, but as I care about sound logic, I do!)

I have addressed this issue in several posts. Rand's argument is not circular. The life of "man qua man" means life as a rational being. But, even that caveat is not strictly necessary because rationality is instrumental to life, so one's odds of survival are maximized by being rational. Moreover, suicide is never justified by the Objectivist ethics.

Darrell

[Darrell Hougen]

Laure:

>We answered the suicide thing.

Yes, with the answer: it isn't moral, except when it is (or sometimes it's neither moral or immoral, according to Darrell - Objectivism is ambivalent about it). Now that's a clearcut standard for you!

Arithmetic is valid implies all operations are valid for all elements of the domain.

Division by zero is undefined.

Therefore, arithmetic is invalid, by modus tollens.

Darrell

[Darrell Hougen]

It is absurd at an even more important level however, as even if we make that decision to always stick to valid logic in ethical decisions, we would find ourselves snafu'd, as one cannot derive decisions from facts using valid logic! Even Darrel has been forced to admit this, by making appeals beyond classical logic to other, nameless "reasoning" systems to justify his claim - systems that he is thus far completely unable to demonstrate the existence of!

This shows the absurdity of your argument. In order to demonstrate my point, you require me to devise an entire system of logic, while you use arguments of exactly the same nature without even realizing it. Every fact that you spout, apart from those that are immediately observable, requires some sort of generalization. So, everything you say depends upon some kind of induction (for lack of a better word). And you use such concepts as if they were gospel in defense of your own indefensible position. Yet, when I attempt to convey facts using the same techniques, you throw up some nonsense about them not being deductively valid arguments. This is all just an attempt on your part to evade addressing the content of my arguments.

Darrell

[Daniel Barnes]

Darrell:

>This shows the absurdity of your argument. In order to demonstrate my point, you require me to devise an entire system of logic, while you use arguments of exactly the same nature without even realizing it. Every fact that you spout, apart from those that are immediately observable, requires some sort of generalization. So, everything you say depends upon some kind of induction (for lack of a better word). And you use such concepts as if they were gospel in defense of your own indefensible position. Yet, when I attempt to convey facts using the same techniques, you throw up some nonsense about them not being deductively valid arguments. This is all just an attempt on your part to evade addressing the content of my arguments.

Darrell,

I'm not asking you to devise an entire system of logic. You're already claiming you're using this magic kind of logic to justify Ayn Rand's position, which is both not deductive logic, but also "logically valid" in some other mysterious way!

That is all there is to it, and to your argument.

>Yet, when I attempt to convey facts using the same techniques, you throw up some nonsense about them not being deductively valid arguments.This is all just an attempt on your part to evade addressing the content of my arguments.

1) Your arguments are deductively invalid. Even you admit this, albeit when the whim takes you! It is not "nonsense" at all. See my challenge below.

2) Actually, IMO all you are doing is trying to avoid facing the fact that Ayn Rand's arguments in this regard are illogical! So you are dreaming up some alternative "logical validity" to appeal to, which you say doesn't even have a name! Please. This is nonsense!

This is not a "he said she said." Like young master Pross, you do not get to make up your own standards of logical validity. They can be independently verified.

So as far as evading goes, I repeat my challenge. I'm off tonite, but when I'm back in a few weeks, let's take your claims about "is/ought" to an independent logic forum - there are several on the net - and see what they say.

[Darrell Hougen]

Darrell:

>This shows the absurdity of your argument. In order to demonstrate my point, you require me to devise an entire system of logic, while you use arguments of exactly the same nature without even realizing it. Every fact that you spout, apart from those that are immediately observable, requires some sort of generalization. So, everything you say depends upon some kind of induction (for lack of a better word). And you use such concepts as if they were gospel in defense of your own indefensible position. Yet, when I attempt to convey facts using the same techniques, you throw up some nonsense about them not being deductively valid arguments. This is all just an attempt on your part to evade addressing the content of my arguments.

Darrell,

I'm not asking you to devise an entire system of logic. You're already claiming you're using this magic kind of logic to justify Ayn Rand's position, which is both not deductive logic, but also "logically valid" in some other mysterious way!

I'm not claiming that my arguments are valid in "some other mysterious way." I am claiming that they are logically valid in the ordinary sense. They are consistent. They are non-contradictory.

>Yet, when I attempt to convey facts using the same techniques, you throw up some nonsense about them not being deductively valid arguments.This is all just an attempt on your part to evade addressing the content of my arguments.

1) Your arguments are deductively invalid. Even you admit this, albeit when the whim takes you! It is not "nonsense" at all. See my challenge below.

2) Actually, IMO all you are doing is trying to avoid facing the fact that Ayn Rand's arguments in this regard are illogical! So you are dreaming up some alternative "logical validity" to appeal to, which you say doesn't even have a name! Please. This is nonsense!

Rand's arguments and my arguments are logical and (redundantly) valid. They are valid in the ordinary sense. They may be tricky, because they involve reasoning about a reasoner. But they are not invalid. They follow logically from the facts of reality, as I have shown.

Darrell

[Darrell Hougen]

>Every word of every post that you make stands for a CONCEPT.

And that is precisely why we should avoid arguments over concepts, as it leads inexorably to empty arguments over the meanings of words, and arguments over the meanings of words are not logically decidable as true or false. Words, entirely contra Rand, are conventions. Things aren't created with little labels hidden on the underside with their names on them! If you want to settle debates over the meanings of words, just use a dictionary. That's what they're for.

>And concepts are formed, not solely through deductive logic, but through observation of the world around us, observation of our own inner states, and induction. If that's "illogical", then to borrow your phrase, "you're not going to get very far."

Well, yes but all philosophical arguments are about how these things all fit together! Because it sounds alright when you put it this vaguely. But when people started to look at this closely, starting thousands of years ago, they noticed that the above elements clashed in important places. This lead to the development of philosophical problems. It's not some fairy story of goodies and baddies, locked in mortal philosophical struggle, you know. It's about trying to resolve the deep clashes that result from what seems at first, just as you put it above, such a seemingly simple combination of elements.

This is very illuminating. It illustrates clearly the problem with your position. The meanings of words are not merely conventions. One cannot arbitrarily throw objects into a basket and give them a name. It would be impossible to reason about anything if you did. A bush is different from a car in reality, not just by convention. Two cars are more similar than a car and a bush in reality, not just by convention. So, not all philosophical arguments are about how things fit together. They are also about the concepts themselves.

Darrell

[Darrell Hougen]

On the Peikoff side, he is correct that operations like mathematics do have a foundation in reality. But there is a small catch. The mind comes with an innate capacity to integrate and even to perform logic and mathematics. That's reality too. The mind's method of functioning is prewired, regardless of what is fed into it. This is part of its identity.

The mind has an innate capacity to integrate facts and to reason logically in the sense that even a small child strives for consistency. However: (1) Innate capacities are not knowledge and (2) the mind has no capacity to automatically perform mathematical operations.

Addressing point two first: If you have children, you should notice by observing them that a small child cannot even count to 10. Moreover, once he has learned to count to 10, he still cannot count ten objects. That requires a separate step of learning.

The brain comes with an innate capacity for pattern recognition. So, if a child hears the sound for the number two following the sound for the number one, he learns that "two" follows "one" without having any concept of what "one" and "two" actually mean. It takes another step to learn that the label "two" is associated with two objects in the world. That association is achieved by having the child count objects.

I have several clear memories of my own children learning to count. One interesting thing that I noted was that a child will mouth the numbers from 1 to 10 but his finger won't keep up with his mouth. The child uses his finger to point at the objects that he is counting. But, his finger often gets behind what he saying. At the beginning, the motion of his finger may be almost uncorrelated with the sounds that he is making. Later, his finger will follow the objects more closely, but he will often double count objects or skip objects. Only when he has formed a clear mental model of what he is doing does the operation become automatic.

Another memory I have is of one of my children counting reindeer attached to Santa's sleigh. He tediously counted, "One reindeer, two reindeer, three reindeer, four reindeer, five reindeer, six reindeer, seven reindeer, eight reindeer." To me, that demonstrates a difficulty in abstracting the number of objects from the type of object. That is yet another kind of conceptualization that must be learned.

So, I think that if your point is to show that some knowledge is innate (point 1 above) I think you are mistaken. The mind is very much tabula raza. Even if the mind were preprogrammed with some ability to perform mathematical operations, that would not constitute knowledge. Knowledge is the subject of thought, not the process of thought.

Darrell

Edited April 3, 2007 by Darrell Hougen

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

On the Peikoff side, he is correct that operations like mathematics do have a foundation in reality. But there is a small catch. The mind comes with an innate capacity to integrate and even to perform logic and mathematics. That's reality too. The mind's method of functioning is prewired, regardless of what is fed into it. This is part of its identity.

The mind has an innate capacity to integrate facts and to reason logically in the sense that even a small child strives for consistency. However: (1) Innate capacities are not knowledge and (2) the mind has no capacity to automatically perform mathematical operations.

Addressing point two first: If you have children, you should notice by observing them that a small child cannot even count to 10. Moreover, once he has learned to count to 10, he still cannot count ten objects. That requires a separate step of learning.

The brain comes with an innate capacity for pattern recognition.

. . .

So, I think that if your point is to show that some knowledge is innate (point 1 above) I think you are mistaken. The mind is very much tabula raza. Even if the mind were preprogrammed with some ability to perform mathematical operations, that would not constitute knowledge. Knowledge is the object of thought, not the process of thought.

Darrell,

Please read my post more carefully. I stated clearly "the mind's method of functioning is prewired, regardless of what is fed into it." Method means process, not external facts (sensory experience). Obviously if no numbers are conceived, long division cannot develop. But some of this capacity does unfold with growth, such as the capacity to conceive numbers and structure rules.

If you wish to observe the young to arrive at conclusions of innate behavior and mental operations, show me one infant who has chosen not to learn to see or to speak or to count. A child has no choice about the development of his rational capacity just as he has no choice about the development of his increasing height or the fact that he will get bigger and stronger.

It is completely beyond my capacity to imagine that the basic mathematical method of using numbers all humans share is merely a coincidence and that the development of another method has not happened also merely because of coincidence. That would be is a total invalidation of induction ("all similarities we observe are nothing but coincidence"). Our mind organizes its identifications and runs its processes in certain ways and we have no choice about the nature of them.

And if you really wish to observe the young to arrive at conclusions of innate behavior and mental operations, why not at least take a peak at Sylvan Tomkins in the work of Steven Shmurak right here on OL? This is a scientist who not only observed the young, he documented it. This shows very clearly that at the affect level, value judgments are instincts, thus the mind is not tabula rasa at birth. It is like a seed that will grow regardless of volition. Volition itself is an outgrowth of that seed.

The unfolding of a seed is not acquired knowledge. It is growth and innate development. The process is inherent in the seed. A branch and leaves and growing toward the light are inherent in the seed of a tree, but you can't see them in the seed. Just like identification (integration and differentiation) are inherent processes in the human mind but you can't see them in the newborn. These processes develop and run automatically, but later can also be performed volitionally, like breathing.

Here's an amusing thought. Would you claim that the lungs are tabula rasa at birth? In terms of receiving oxygen, they are, but not in what they do with the oxygen. They already know what to do with it without even encountering oxygen before. Let's say that what they do with oxygen is not "tabula rasa." Physically, they are "oxygen rasa," but in terms of their innate nature, they come with an oxygen recognition and processing mechanism. So in that sense, they are not "oxygen rasa." They have innate knowledge of oxygen on a sensory level.

Just like the mind has innate knowledge of what to do with sensory input. Even forming concepts is innate and automatic, but it can be volitional later like breathing. Show me an infant who refuses to form any concepts at all.

Heh.

The only way the term "tabula rasa" can apply with validity to the human mind is in the actual processing of physical sensations outside the womb. But it comes with prewired instructions of what to do with some of those sensations. That knowledge is innate.

Michael

[Darrell Hougen]

No, the length of the chain of reasoning has nothing to do with the question whether the truth is analytic or synthetic. Some mathematical proofs may take dozens of pages, but the result is an analytical truth. Neither is it relevant that analytical truths may seem refer to things in the physical world; there may be a (subtle) mismatch between one or more of our definitions and physical reality, so that we arrive at an analytical truth (which follows from the definitions), which does not correspond to reality (although it may seem to do so). There is a sharp distinction between analytic truths and synthetic truths. A good example is Euclidean geometry. All the theorems derived from Euclides axioms are analytic truths, they follow unequivocally from the definitions and they can never be falsified. Now a quite different question is whether Euclidean geometry can be applied successfully to the world we live in. If we measure the angles of a triangle between three physical points, and we find that the sum of these angles equals 360 degrees, this is a synthetic truth, which may be falsified. If it is falsified, the conclusion is not that Euclid's proof is not valid, that is valid for eternity as it is an analytical truth, it only means that Euclid's geometry is not the correct geometry to describe the physical world. A red herring to be avoided is the fact that many theoretical constructs may have their first origins in empirical research, i.e. in synthetic truths. That the first steps to abstraction may induced by the results of physical measurements does not mean that the results of the abstract reasoning are synthetic. What happens is that from the data an abstract model is built, this is literally an "abstraction", a taking out of properties the physical world seems to have, which is formalized with its own definitions and axioms. That formalized model is then used to derive analytical truths. Einstein put it like this: "Insofar as the laws of mathematics are true, they do not apply to reality. And insofar as they apply to reality, they are not true", which taken out of context may be somewhat confusing, but which is nothing but a concise statement about the difference between analytic truths and synthetic truths.

Which means there are no analytic truths because to be true, a statement must correspond to reality. Or, stated another way, if we are constrained to use deduction only, then it is impossible to establish a true statement of any kind whatsoever.

Darrell

[bmacwilliam]

On the Peikoff side, he is correct that operations like mathematics do have a foundation in reality. But there is a small catch. The mind comes with an innate capacity to integrate and even to perform logic and mathematics. That's reality too. The mind's method of functioning is prewired, regardless of what is fed into it. This is part of its identity.

So, I think that if your point is to show that some knowledge is innate (point 1 above) I think you are mistaken. The mind is very much tabula raza. Even if the mind were preprogrammed with some ability to perform mathematical operations, that would not constitute knowledge. Knowledge is the subject of thought, not the process of thought.

Darrell

Yeah, right... Knowledge about the process is somehow not knowledge.

Tabula rasa is another one of Rand's ideas that has only one defense, as I see you're leaning to already, and that's to define knowledge and character traits as by definition uninheritable - ie only and all that is not inherited. There are so many examples of heritable knowledge/character/personality in both man and animals that the only refuge the Rand defender can take is to say "but that's not knowledge" and committing the begging the question fallacy.

Bob

Edited April 3, 2007 by Bob_Mac