God and Gödel’s Theorem of Incompleteness
Offline Disclaimer:
Before I start, I would like to say that to the best of my knowledge, this argument is original to me and that I intend to publish it eventually. Other theists feel free to use this argument in private settings, but please be honest and source me (and allow me to publish it eventually. This argument has taken me quite some time to assemble.) Also please inform me if it is actually not original.
Oh, atheists, I am posting this here to see how this argument stands up to something approaching real scrutiny. I'm just as much after valid criticisms as anything else (and if this argument is a doozy, I would like to know that, too and why.)
Also, this argument isn't a "proof of God" so much as it is an argument against the alternative.
Sources: Wikipedia (for initial drafting purposes only) and Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (online) Considering how famous Gödel’s Theorems of Incompleteness are (and how differently different sources phrase them) feel free to note that this work is improperly cited. The only reason I don't cite from the horse's mouth is that I can't read German (I've read that Gödel was reluctant about several translations of his own work.)\
OUTLINE:
Part 1: The Argument
Introduction
Section 1: Gödel’s First Theorem of Incompleteness
Section 2: Gödel’s Second Theorem of Incompleteness
Section 3: Applying "God" as a Completion of Physics and Logic
Part 2: Foreseen Criticisms and Rebuttals:
Section 1: Preventing Ad Infinitum Regressions
Section 2: Is the Application of Gödel’s Theorem to Physics/Logic a Valid Application?
Section 3: Can Quantum Mechanics Create an Exception?
Introduction
If the observable universe was created by non-teleologically based forces, then it follows that our own reason would be self-attesting. I have argued (at length) with Todangst over this point. Likewise, if the universe itself were a collection of forces acting with no teleological intention, it follows that those forces themselves are self-attesting.
By contrast, IF the observable universe was created by a force with teleological intention, it follows that neither logic, nor the forces of the universe itself would be self-attesting.
Begin with the following assertion assumed to be true "Physics itself is complete [regardless of the state of our understanding of it.]" also known as Leplace's Demon.
Section 1: Gödel’s First Theorem of Incompleteness:
"If [system] P is ω-consistent, then there is a sentence which is neither provable nor refutable from P." (From Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Starting from this, we see that in terms of formal provability, neither the functions of logic nor the forces of the universe can account for themselves. Assuming that all that is is physical, then in the realm of logic, we see that logic will produce true statements that are not provable within logic itself. Ergo far from being "self-attesting" logic cannot even prove all statements it regards as true to be true (and is therefore incomplete.)
Things do not improve when this is applied to the physical forces. Again, we can see that there will be statements regarded as true that cannot be proven as true within the realm of the physical forces.
But, if all that is is physical, then it is impossible for a true statement to not be provable by the forces of physics. There is no higher axiomatic system to invoke given monistic materialism.
Section 2: Gödel’s Second Theorem of Incompleteness
"If P is consistent, then Con(P) is not provable from P." (from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Applying this to logic and physical forces, it can be seen that it is logically improper to even use logic or the forces of physics as their own proof-system. They are incurably incomplete.
(This can be seen even more clearly with the Wikipedia wording.)
Section 3: Applying "God" as a Completion of Logic and Physics
For the sake of argument, define "God" as "a substance that has no place, mass, charge, or other means of direct physical influence, y exerts physical effects."
Importing "God" into Logic allows logic to function consistently; under the pretext that logic itself is understood to be incomplete. The same holds true for physical forces. Statements that were true, but could not be proven in either system can now be proven by importing "God." Indeed, a view of either physics or logic without "God" (or an analogous feature) is inescapably either incomplete (the first theorem of incompleteness) or is inconsistent (the second theorem of incompleteness.)
Part 2: Foreseen Criticisms and Rebuttals
Section 1: Preventing Ad Infinitum Regressions.
"God" completing logic and physics is all well and good, but what system will complete the axioms that "God" cannot possess? Is there an axiomatic system higher than God, even?
In this feature, this argument is analogous to the first cause argument, with the definite exception that a stop is possible in this case. There are at least two solutions that both stop Gödel’s Theorems from applying to everything in sight. One is that "God" Himself has a multiplicitous nature; the other is that "God" is not able to be logically probed.
Assuming "God" has a multiplicitous nature, then we are not looking at a singular entity, but rather several peer entities. Assuming that no one entity of God has a total axiomatic solution, then it follows that the statements that cannot be proven in one entity are provable in the other and vice-versa. This solution is admittedly circular, but both Gödel’s Theorem and "God's" finality are satisfied.
Conversely, it is possible that "God" is just not logically able to be probed. This solution explains that Gödel’s Theorem no longer applies to "God," but gives no specific mechanism on how it no longer applies.
Section 2: Is the Application of Gödel’s Theorem to Physics/Logic a Valid Application?
The wikipedia entry on Gödel’s Theorems of Incompleteness has an entry that reads as follows:
"Stanley Jaki followed much later by Stephen Hawking and others argue that (an analogous argument to) Gödel's theorem implies that even the most sophisticated formulation of physics will be incomplete, and that therefore there can never be an ultimate theory that can be formulated as a finite number of principles, known for certain as "final".
I have not traced the citations given to credible citations:
Jaki: http://pirate.shu.edu/~jakistan/JakiGodel.pdf
Hawking: http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/strings02/dirac/hawking/
Given that Gödel’s Theorem explicitly applies to any system that involves arithmetic (beyond "the most trivial systems"
it follows that all symbolic mathematics (including logic) follow suit. It also follows that physics itself follows suit insofar as it is modeled via mathematics.
Presently I see no reason why it should not apply, so I see no reason to compartmentalize my understanding of the universe.
Section 3: Can Quantum Mechanics Create an Exception?
All this "Importing 'God" business is complicated, not to mention suspicious. Is it possible that we can invoke quantum unpredictability to assert that the universe itself is inconsistent within bounds?
Quantum mechanics is not "inconsistent within bounds" it is not predictable beyond probabilities. It is still computable and, like all the other laws of physics discussed here, modeled with mathematics on the assumption of consistency.
"Truth is the cry of all, but the game of the few." George Berkeley
"Truth is always strange — stranger than fiction." Lord Byron
Fixing the world, one dumb idea at a time.
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Sir V, I think I basically agree with your reply to me. ((( I was editing my above post from the original you just replied to. Please read again. Help me out !
I am new to much of this subject topic, but agree, that all our thought processing is innately dogmatic. The acknowledgment of this is important, and the lack of that acknowledgment is a bigger problem in "religion".
I watched a vid last night that included some problems with "peer review", as you mentioned. Being aware of this is helpful to improvement and better reasoning.
Maybe not worth watching, but here it is,
One hour - Equinox - It Runs on Water (Free Energy - 1995)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2464139837181538044&q=free+energy
Enjoyable video, as I am of the "hunch" , that as much as our math/science has wonderfully helped us, that it can also be a dogmatic block. I love science, I hate dogma, I hate controllers ..... My science opinion is we know only jack shit, little yet.
Thanks for caring .....
And yeah, to maybe the wisest of all, the comedians !
Atheism Books.
Come again? Even if an algorithm is given the ability to edit itself, choice is not involved. As soon as choice is demonstrably shown (as I think Schwartz's treatments have inconclusively) then it can't even be modeled in terms of a series of algorithms, no matter how many systems of algorithms you invoke.
I don't see how that invokes philosophy. Just definitions.
I'll keep an eye peeled. In the mean-time I'm working through "Logic for Undergraduates, third edition" by Robert J. Kreyche. It just happened to be in my library.
Btw. I can't get the video to work. Maybe my computer doesn't have a driver it needs (I'll try on another computer shortly.)
"Truth is the cry of all, but the game of the few." George Berkeley
"Truth is always strange — stranger than fiction." Lord Byron
Fixing the world, one dumb idea at a time.
You've lost me...
Are you saying that choice cannot be reduced to an algorithm?
That'll likely do the trick just as well.
The one I recommended is aimed at undergraduates too.
Yes and no. I'm not saying that every instance of choosing cannot be reduced to an algorithm, but rather that this specific instance of choice can't because it's an internal and an arbitrary choice.
Let me put this another way (so that I can understand what I am thinking, too.) Let's write an algorithm for sorting apples with bruises from those without. The algorithm is a list of specific instructions that finds apples with bruises and chooses them (removes them from the rest.) The algorithm is choosing apples. This is an external and non-arbitrary choice.
Now what if the algorithm is given two equally good means of distinguishing bruised apples from those that are not. For the sake of our example, let's say that sorting apples by touch and by sight are totally equal means of sorting away the bruised ones, and that to conserve effort we only want to apply one or the other means of sorting.
For our algorithm to be an algorithm, it must have one set as a default to run. In other words, it cannot remain a list of very specific instructions (an algorithm) and yet arbitrarily choose one of the methods over another: the algorithm can possess external choice over which apples are chosen, but not internal choice of how the apples are chosen.
In fact, we see people do this all the time: arbitrarily choose one method of solving a problem over another. This characteristic is by definition non-algorithmic.
On a related note: The mind could also be said to be non-algorithmic because it can exit logical binds without solving them. As that the Earth is wider at the equator than it is tall from pole to pole, do rivers that flow towards the equator flow uphill? Obviously you possess the ability to just "exit the system" of this problem before solving it. When you do that and why are internal (and probably arbitrary) choices, just in a slightly different way than the above example.
"Truth is the cry of all, but the game of the few." George Berkeley
"Truth is always strange — stranger than fiction." Lord Byron
Fixing the world, one dumb idea at a time.
That brings us to what I said a couple of pages back.
'Choice' doesn't describe an algorithm or physical process.
When we talk about 'choice', we aren't using language to talk about 'things' or describe facts of the world.
The language of decision making is about predicting/rationalising behaviour.
Because it's defined on prediction rather than physical processes, a process too complex for a human to predict would allow the "undetermined" concept of 'choice' to be applied.
To put it more simple terms:
'Choice' is a concept in our language of predicting behaviour.
Because the physical processes behind such a result are too complex to absolutely predict, no prediction will be absolute.
So the concept of 'choice' has this arbitrariness because it is to be applied in situations where we cannot have absolute predictions.
You're basically saying here, "Because the algorithm is the kind of simplistic programming we usually associate with algorithms, it can't be an algorithm."
Have you come across Chaos theory in mathematics?
The idea is that we can use Newtonian mechanics to model the movement and interactions between 2-5 particles fairly easily.
However, the more the particles that interact, the amount of events and possibilities rises exponentially.
Get to just 1000 particles and it's no longer feasible to calculate using the rules of Newtonian mechanics as there are just too many calculations to do.
Chaos theory is about models too complex to calculate exactly and it becomes more about spotting patterns that arise.
Fractals were an interesting example, how the results it gave were never exactly the same but nevertheless patterns arose.
Your argument appears to be, "There isn't a simple process/algorithm that explains it, therefore there must be no algorithm"
Besides, there's an easy argument against:
What happened in case X?
If something happened then there is a description of what happened.
An algorithm to recreate case X would be to follow this description.
Therefore anything that happens could be potentially determined an algorithm.
From there we simply say that the word "choice" is a word that captures a lot of different algorithms/processes with certain properties in common.
"Truth is the cry of all, but the game of the few." George Berkeley
"Truth is always strange — stranger than fiction." Lord Byron
Fixing the world, one dumb idea at a time.
Obviously now you're just playing around. "Why do you think he's right?" is a straightforward question. It seems to be impossible for you to answer. I figured it would move the conversation forward, since I was trying to understand what you were on about. But here we are.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
Huh? If I understand his argument, then the question "why do I think he's right" is a non-question because I agree with the reasons he uses in his argument, so I'm pretty sure that you're the one who's just playing with words and not understanding the argument.
Regardless -IF YOU INSIST- I think he's right (that consciousness is non-algorithmic) because it has turned out to be an exception to just about every rule physics has tried to force on it: Strafio has told me that consciousness must be a purely physical phenomenon, but the solipsists' skepticism tells us that consciousness is also not empirically studyable (or even verifiable, for that matter) and the quote from Leibniz tells us that mechanics is by definition unable to explain consciousness.
...Now...unless you can tell me of another known phenomenon that is not explicable mechanically and not empirically verifiable, but is also known to be purely physical, I think that my position that consciousness is unique (and quite possibly has a fundamental aspect that is not physical) is justified.
Regardless, assuming such a phenomenon can be explained with (or even just theoretically definable within) physical principles (when you can't physically verify the phenomenon itself) is not justified and is also a classic example of a non sequitor by asking empirical observation to explain what it can't even detect.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but unless I'm quite wrong, the correct solution on the Atheist's metaphysical position is to say that perception is illusory and actually does not exist. As that this solution negates basic human qualia about self-perception, I rest my case.
"Truth is the cry of all, but the game of the few." George Berkeley
"Truth is always strange — stranger than fiction." Lord Byron
Fixing the world, one dumb idea at a time.
Before we go on, I want to restate my position on the philosophy of mind.
You need to understand it before you can make sense of my answers.
To summarise:
Describing the physical world and talking about mind are two different uses of language, consequently with different rules.
The physicalist believes that physics can give a complete description of the world but there's more to language than giving complete descriptions of the world, we have other uses like the language of mind.
Consequently, concepts of mind don't follow the same rules as the concepts of physics.
That's why they're not tied down to material concepts but they don't do physical interactions either.
(So all causes of physical events are physical)
Where physical concepts connect with mental concepts is as follows:
In language, the rules for applying a term correctly will depend on the physical conditions.
The concepts of mentality are linked to our behaviour.
One example is when we describe an action - "Jason hit someone"
We're talking about an 'agent' who is 'doing' something.
We could describe the situation in purely physical language e.g. the biological arm moved at such and such velocity...
So some situations are ones where both physical and mental concepts can be applied.
This gives them a logical connection.
From there the physical description is causally linked to others, and the mental concepts have their own connection to other mental concepts.
This is how 'decision' (purely mental concept) is linked to 'action' (a situation where both mental and physical concepts are applicable) which in turn causes 'consequences' (physical events)
E.g. I decided to chop wood (decision), so I swung the axe (action) and the log was split in half. (consquence)
I think this argument would rule out me knowing everything about my brain, that is the position and alignment of every single atom in it.
After all, it's the position of these atoms that stores information so clearly it's a physical impossibility for a mind to contain such an amount of information.
This argument doesn't refute the physicalist position because the physicalist doesn't claim that we know every single last bit of information, just that we know general trends.
A bit like the sea - our brain surely can't process the position of every single drop yet we know more or less how it tends to behave.
Too complex for a brain to completely grasp the equation that predicts it's movement but that doesn't mean that one isn't possible in theory - just one too complex to be processed by the brain.
My explanation for the non-algorithmicness of our mental concepts is because they're not 'physical descriptions', but langauge we use in a different way.
The language is rooted in our methods of predicting human behaviour and communicating our own behaviours to others.
This isn't behaviourism. I'm not saying that mental concepts refer to behaviour or replace behaviour - that would again be trying to reduce mental concepts to physical descriptions.
I'm saying the the role of language of mind among humans is to make sense of behaviour.
The fact that they aren't physical concepts and don't reduce to physical language is no contradiction to ontological physicalism.
Ontological physicalism claims that when we describe the world, all we need is physics.
The ontological physicalist has no problems in admitting that we use language for other things too.
Yeah Srafio, I think I understood that and agree. I real short summary of what you and Sir V disagree on would be helpful for me, if that's possible. Thanks.
And so was what I previously wrote okay, and on topic ???
"Philosophy is: "love of wisdom; rational investigation of theories and principles or knowledge, existence, and conduct" , ..... written as our evolving linguistics.
Science is modeling the universe, primarily using our math dogma, and "publicly" communicated in the style of "folklore", by our linguistics.
"Ideal" Science and Philosophy are helpful, and acknowledge themselves as inescapably dogmatic, [ and put effort into improvement ]. While religion "fundamentalism" is unhelpful "blind dogmatic surrender", in denial of error."
Communication is tough and tricky for me ..... thanks for caring and helping.
Atheism Books.
As much as I'd like to give you a neat summary of the disagreement between me and V, I don't think we've worked them out ourselves yet!!
I think that our debate has a familiar pattern though.
There's two opposing positions in philosophy.
On the one hand, our rational investigation of matters give us clear structure on how things should be.
On the other hand, there are various ideas that are important to us but don't appear to fit within this structure.
So this leaves a contradiction - one of them must be wrong, so which?
One example is philosophy of mind.
Physicalism is the only coherent metaphysical position.
Yet many of our concepts of mind don't appear to follow the concepts of physicalism, and when physicalists try to reduce the mind to physical concepts they end up trying to re-define our mental concepts to something different.
So there's others who start out by taking our mental concepts as they are and conclude that if physicalism disagrees then physicalism must be wrong.
But physicalism is the only coherent metaphysical position - to deny it ends in self contradiction.
This was similar to the 17th century debate between rationalists like Descartes and Leibnitz and empiricists like Locke and Hume.
Kant came up with a solution that took the best of both worlds.
His position was that we don't see the 'world as it is'. Instead our understanding of the world is filtered by our modes of understanding.
So our empirical mode of understanding perceived the world in one way, our 'rationalist' mode of understanding the mind perceived the world in another, both perceiving truths about 'the world as it is' but neither giving the whole picture. Because they were different modes of understanding, they were alternatives rather than contradictories.
Ofcourse, Kant's idea of "the world as it really is" had problems of it's own, but the idea that mind and matter were two separate modes of understanding hit the nail square.
By the 20th century, the understanding had come to be seen as closely connected with language.
The rules that we use to apply concepts were analogous to our rules of language.
Wittgenstein came to the conclusion that to understand a word is to know how to apply it correctly.
If you think about how we learn language, we try out words and are encouraged when we apply them correctly, corrected when we use them wrong.
We gradually learn the correct rules for using words in the right way, and that's when we're said to understand them.
He said that language is like a game. You learn to play the game by learning the correct ways to apply words.
One example of a language game is mathematics.
We start by counting, "1, 2, 3..." and then carry on by bringing in more complex rules like addition, subtraction... etc.
The rules of logic will be determined by the rules of the language game.
For instance, the logical law of non-contradiction "X cannot be both A and not A" is basically the word 'not' correctly.
Imagine if you said "I am not stupid" and someone said "I agree with you but you're also stupid", the conversation just wouldn't be making sense.
It would be as if you'd never used the word 'not' at all. Because we have the word 'not' that we use in our language, we have the law of non-contradiction.
The law of non-contradiction is all about using the word 'not' correctly.
Kant showed the mind and matter are two separate modes of understanding.
His difficulty was how to make sense of there being two separate modes of understanding.
So Wittgenstein showed that logic and understanding is determined by the rules of the language game we are playing.
So now it's quite easy - we just show that mind and physics are two different language games.
Physics is when we are describing the world around us, and we follow the rules of the empiricists and come to the conclusion of physicalism.
Mind is when we are interacting, predicting and communicating our behaviour to fellow human beings.
Our concepts of mind are as the rationalists observed them to be, free will and no determinism on our decisions.
Why? Because when we play the language game of 'mind' as we do, the way we apply the words of decision making, the rules that we follow, these rules show that we have free will, that our 'will' is free and not determined by our beliefs and desires. There is an element of spontaneity.
I see the debate on religion being similar.
Fundamentalists start with their religious practice, find that science disagrees so try to tamper with science.
Many atheists start with science, don't see a connection between science and religion so dismiss religion.
Then there are the 'moderates' out there who recognise that science and religion are two different practices for two difference purposes.
They thereby manage to do science when science is appropiate and follow their religion when religions is appropiate, not worrying if the two seem to contradict.
The rest of your summary was alright, but I'd like to make a couple of ammendments.
I wouldn't call maths a dogma.
Maths is a language game like other language games.
It so happens that this language game is very good for clear cut logic so this makes it an ideal language for scientific investigation.
Nevertheless, when scientific theories are just thought of, they usually use looser, more metaphoric language to build up the big picture.
From there, the big fuzzy picture gradually evolves and devellops into tight mathematical models as we fill in the details.
Another reason why maths isn't a dogma is because it can be investigated and questioned like other language games are.
Just bare in mind that we're questioning is as a 'practice' rather than a 'truth' because 'truth' is for propositions within language games while the language games themselves are practices.
Fundamentalism is an interesting topic.
As I said before, there's the moderates who recognise that science is science while religion is religion.
That is, our beliefs about the natural world are one thing and 'articles of faith' are another.
You use beliefs about the world to construct bridges and articles of faith to inspire virtue.
Beliefs about the world are either true or false.
There are clear cut facts and falsehoods and you can learn them by reading a book and listening to what an expert tells you.
With articles of faith, it's not such much the truth of what's our there, it's what's "true for you".
It's a matter of what makes sense to you, what brings out your virtue, what brings you happiness.
When faith and fact is separated like this, they compliment each other.
They are the ying and yang of a person's worldview.
What fundamentalists do is fail to recognise the difference.
The believe that both should be one, and that trying to separate them are a cop out.
This leads to two extremely bad consequences:
1) Articles of faith are justified by our values and their making sense while facts are determined by the reality out there.
When the two are merged they leave with no direct way on how to justify 'belief'.
What's more, many 'beliefs' will be justified by one and condemned by another.
The charlatans wills therefore have the tools at their disposal to fight for anything they want to believe.
You will notice that when fundies fight the atheists they accuse their scientific beliefs of being cold and heartless.
When the fundies fight against other religions they accuse their opponents of having unscientific beliefs.
They basically use a mismash of confusion to make it sound like their points have a validity, when they're actually breaking every single rule in the book.
2) Religion is about 'what is true for you', a journey of self discovery.
Science are facts about the world that are either true or false and an expert can tell you which.
This is another feature that fundamentalism blurs, to the same effect as before.
They use their own journey to justify their unscientific beliefs.
They then put themselves forwards as authorities to deny those below them their own journey through religion.
They demand that their 'subject' treat their claims like scientific fact and treat their religious beliefs as have the solidality of scientific ones.
Things that made the journey of the religious moderate acceptable, that they could trust their intuition and heart, and make up their own mind based on what they knew at that moment in time, the authoritarian fundamentalist tries to throw that all out of the window and tries to control these people into thinking like they do.
I'm not saying that there are two clear groups of people, fundamentalists and liberals.
What I'm saying is that there are two extremes of religious behaviour, liberal and fundamentalist.
Everyone will be somewhere between the two extremes, so no one will be absolutely liberal or absolutely fundamentalist, but some people will clearly have more fundamentalist characteristics and other will clearly be more liberal.
Although I say they are both 'extremes', I don't mean to imply that one should balance in the middle.
Instead, it should be seen that the liberal has extreme correctness and clarity while the fundamentalist has extreme confusion.
The liberals have ideal religion and take the best of both worlds of science and spirituality.
The fundamentalist, on the other hand, is full of confusions that threaten to leave them with the very worst of both worlds.
Thanks very much for writing that Strafio. I enjoyed that alot and copied to my desktop to read again for further digesting .... ( hopefully!?, knock on wood )
I think my calling science "dogmatic" is similar to what you wrote on Kant, and maybe what Sir V is getting at. (?) I just mean that it is a system of rules, tho expanding and versatile. I really love and respect science for its honesty. Religious dogma is rigid, and more than just annoying to me ....
Now I'm awaiting Sir V's thoughts, a "cool" theist he is. Maybe kind of a pantheist I dare guess? Much like my sweet caring sister ..... lucky me.
thanks to you all
Atheism Books.
While the example is religious (and the word is connotatively associated with religion) the definition itself is neutral. Science is dogmatic by definition because of insistence on a specific set of rules for the scientific method, peer review, etc. and even a standard measuring system (SI). It just doesn't possess the religious connotative part of the word (which is not part of the definition.)
Nope. Calvinist through and through (with some unique views of predestination.) What you're looking at is the effects of two systematic theology courses, three Bible courses, two apologetics courses, one informal logic course...and a side of standard AP Biology (NEVER EVER TAKE AP! IT IS THE DEVIL!)
I'm pretty sure that the difference between myself and Strafio can be put as this:
Me: I have a worldview that allows for non-physical substances. When I see a known phenomenon, but that isn't exactly (externally) observable, empirically verifiable, or even can be explained via the mechanics associated with it (as perception/consciousness/ self-awareness is) my initial impulse is to rely on my position of non-physical substances to explain why physical explanations are failing.
Granted, if our understanding of physics (or physical proofs) goes through a substantial paradigm shift, such an explanatory leap may prove be unneeded...but the paradigm shift would need to change or make obsolete the scientific method and empirical observation (because perception is immune to both.) We're talking a fundamental shift in science and not a slight tweaking here.
Strafio: Strafio holds that non-physical causation (or substances) is incoherent. Given this assumption, a known phenomenon that can't be empirically tested must have a physical explanation/causation/justification (**insert whichever word Strafio chooses for this relationship here**.)
There you have it: Strafio holds a closed-minded position (OK, it may be more accurate to say that it's "sealed" to any possibly external effects and may miss them even if their influences are quite obvious) and I hold a position that makes a leap that may prove to not be needed.
As you can see, neither position is perfect.
Huh? (Zoom in)
(Don't you mean my handy-dandy concept of "physics itself" here, seeing that the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle proves that human modeling of physics can't give complete descriptions.)
If the language is not giving physical description (even if indirectly) then what does "I have a toothache" mean? As near as I can make out it's just an indirect physical description.
Besides, what is language doing if it isn't describing physics? There's nothing else for it to describe, so it's descriptions may be indirect, but they're still physical descriptions.
Uses which...should be useless, seeing as there's nothing else to describe but physics. The fact that they aren't useless says that there's something wrong I haven't put my finger on.
"Truth is the cry of all, but the game of the few." George Berkeley
"Truth is always strange — stranger than fiction." Lord Byron
Fixing the world, one dumb idea at a time.
It's not exactly an assumption.
My position is that idea of a non-physical substance is self contradictory.
But other than that you seem to have my position spot on.
Well, if our language was limited purely to describing the events in the world, the language of physics would explain everything.
However, we use language in all sorts of ways.
Language isn't always representational.
"Hello" for example, doesn't describe anything.
"I love you" doesn't describe anything.
We use language in all sorts of ways and concepts that make no sense in the context of describing the physical world can come up in other language uses.
Mathematics is different language game to physics as is the language of mind.
That's why Mathematical and Mental concepts don't follow the same rules as physics, i.e. they're not 'things' within spacetime subject to physical causation.
Instead they follow the rules of their own language game, rather than the language game of physics.
(To understand better what I mean by a 'language game', try out some Wittgenstein)
I'd have to know more about the Uncertainty Principle to see how this effect my argument.
If I understand it, all the Heisenberg principle states is that the human modelling of physics will never be 100% justified.
In which case, it's not a limit of the descriptive language, just the limits of our epistemology.
We can have a complete description, just never know for sure whether this description is accurate.
It involves other concepts that don't have a place in physics.
You can translate it to a physical description
e.g. Find the entity that 'I' refers to and work out what physical condition 'toothache' involves
but had physical description been all there is to language, words like 'I' and 'toothache' would never have come around.
'I' involves a self identity, something that doesn't come up in a physical description of the world.
Aches and pains are what happen to living things that have desires and aversions.
As such living things we use such things to communicate our reactions to things, rather than just purely describe the event.
Otherwise we could just talk about biological events without mention of such concepts.
"Hello"
"Help me!!"
"You're funny!"
"This sucks!!"
"Why would you do that?"
"3 + 3 = 6"
What physical situations do these sentences refer to?
(Wittgenstien really nails this point, although you don't really need him.
Use your own common sense - you use language in all sorts of ways!
Asking, joking, teasing - we communicate with our fellow humans in all sorts of ways.
Description is just one use of language among many.
Hi S, I didn't read your last post yet, but will when the party here is over. I wrote this, this afternoon and got interrupted. Needs editing ....
Thanks V
I think I'm sort of with Kant here, "taking the middle view", and could say you are both right. I think what the theists intuitively call "non-physical" or free floating consciousness etc, is what physics has yet to fully model or define. ((( the things many call phenomena, other dimensions, miracles, supernatural, and of course G AWE D !
QM etc is making some radical new speculations regarding all this. So I am saying that everything is actually "physical" but we have not yet been able to detect nor mathematically describe reality in its total. The theory of "Everything" is a tough one, but we are working on it !!! But then there will be more questions, wow, truly awesome existence is ! "Godly" !
Kind of like saying there is no such thing as nothing or a "perfect vacume". The concept of no beginning - no end, as simple as it sounds, is not easy to grasp, and goes against "logic" for many ... but my hunch insists this has to be the truth. Therefore all is ONE, therefore all is physical. We just lack the tools of description.
Speculating and imagination is of course is what we do. An important goal to always keep in mind should be rising above dogma in all our endeavors.
As far as Calvin's ideas, I don't think life is a gift, but "I like it, I want it, I need some more of it". Well, I really don't "know" any other real choice in the matter. (life)
RANT: Suicide is a cure not a solution ! Death is a transition. Let's practice peace. Just imagine ! A world wide celebration 24 / 7 ..... What are we ??? Slaves to misery, confusion and fear ??? Yes, sadly so, but it need not be, when a universal understanding of "Oneness" is better realized. The buddhist focus on unnecessary suffering .... Life is a lesson not yet learned. Ahhh go communication, I love YOU !
Atheism Books.
Wow. I AM GOD... did you run a maxim-dictionary through a garbage-compactor to get that? (jk.)
I'd like to see how the non-physical substance position is contradictory. I can definitely see how it could make physical predictions unsure by default, but I don't see how it's contradictory.
(Also, I assume by your silence that you agree that explaining perception physically would require a paradigm-shift in science?)
I'm not dead positive about the Uncertainty Principle, either, but I do know that it asserts that we cannot make finally accurate observations on the quantum level because any act of observation will influence the effects.
The example I was taught is if you hit an electron with a high-frequency photon, you'll have a good idea where it is, but the photon has enough energy to make the electron do just about anything. Conversely, if you hit the electron with a low-frequency photon, you'll be pretty sure its velocity hasn't changed, but the photon will have been so dispersed that you'll have no idea where the electron is.
Back on topic: The point is to use "complete physical description" (even as an abstraction) crosses the line of what is possible via human observation and into the realm of the Leplace's Demon thought experiment...and back again to the assumption that "physics itself" is complete.
I'll check out Wittgenstien.
...Actually, I'd say that they are physical descriptions, but indirect ones. They describe neural connections in the brain, therefore while what they express isn't physical in the sense of externals like "That rose is made of organic compounds" but rather the internal physical description of how neurons are connected.
This is what I meant by indirect: It may not be a direct physical description, but what it's describing is still physical...and yes, it is still describing, even though that, too is indirect. Ergo, the entire "language game" because it is defined within physical parameters is limited to physical description...even though unique structurings can be produced by doing that indirectly.
(I don't think you should leap to explaining things with non-physical substances unless you're pretty darn sure it can't be done any other way: it's a big metaphysical leap that should one should think through carefully before committing to.)
"Truth is the cry of all, but the game of the few." George Berkeley
"Truth is always strange — stranger than fiction." Lord Byron
Fixing the world, one dumb idea at a time.
Wow. I AM GOD... did you run a maxim-dictionary through a garbage-compactor to get that? (jk.) ////////
I think we need to realize we can't create reality nor understand it and that is what I call "god", and no form of math modeling or philosophy written in ligustics, or any other language, will solve this nightmere of AWE !
Reading Godel may cause suicidal tendencies ((( there is no hope for us ....
JK
Atheism Books.
It just denies the properties necessary for causation.
No... I must have missed it in your argument.
Why would it require a paradigm shift?
I thought the problem was philosophical rather than scientific.
What would have to change about science?
Again, this just shows a physical constraint on the human method of perception.
It's physically impossible to perceive something without interacting with it in some way and at a quantumn level these interactions are significant enough to change what we are perceiving.
This is no counter example that physics is 'in principle' fully describable by a model, just that there will never be a practical solution to verify once and for all which model is the 'ideal' one.
'Physics itself' is still a mathematical model when it comes to it's conceptual structure, it's just the ideal model that we will never have the epistemology for in the real world.
The problem with that is then you have to call 'direct descriptions' double descriptions because they'd both describe the neurons and the external object they're describing.
Meaningless babble would also come from some kind of neuron pattern and you'd have to call that a description too.
Once you start using 'description' in this way, it just becomes incoherent and loses all it's meaning.
It's not how we use the word 'description' in real life either.
We have it as an alternative to 'questions' and 'orders' and these both involve neuron connections too.
Who said anything about non-physical explanations?
I'm just pointing out that we use language for things other than description and explanation.
And seeing as physics is a practice of description, concepts we have through non-descriptive language games will be non-physical concepts.
I wouldn't say 'substance' because substance is what we call 'things' that 'exist' - it is also tied to the language game of description.
It'd be awesome if you checked out that Wittgenstein as he nails this point much better than I do.
I doubt that all theists will hold to precisely the same position of physical causation that you do, so such a loosely set contradiction hardly applies. I, for instance, hold to a tiered causation position. In other words, assuming there is a physical cause and a metaphysical cause that contradicts it, on the assumption that the metaphysical cause is accurate, the metaphysical cause belongs to a higher tier than physics and the physical cause is bent into submission of the metaphysical cause.
Needless to say, our understanding of metaphysics is sketchy at best, and metaphysical causes are quite rare, let alone the specific instance of a metaphysical cause in contradiction to a physical one, so the event we are talking about here is definitely not an everyday occurrence. The few instances when it does occur the metaphysical reason (for the sake of argument "provided by God"
will win, hence miracles.
I would say that miracles are a natural phenomenon, even if they violate physical causation. That's just part of my tiered causation position: metaphysics is every bit as "natural" as physics, it just belongs to a different tier which can't be studied in the same empirical way as physics. (I believe the tiered causation position is original to me.)
Well, I'm pretty sure that it would need a paradigm shift to fill the explanatory gap because perception isn't empirically verifiable (solipsism's skepticism.) I take this as evidence that perception actually belongs to the metaphysical tier of nature, even if a specific perceiving-machine is embedded within a specific physical object: the two are attached, not identical.
On this line of thought, AI being perceptive is impossible because humans can't manipulate metaphysics to make a metaphysical machine. If God ever did "see fit to give a machine a soul" as Turing postulated, then the "being" part of such a being would not truly be "artificial."
Sure you can argue that the explanatory gap is just a philosophical problem, but it's not actually in line with an atheistic position: if you deny mental life exists apart from physics, then the explanatory gap is just another problem left for physicists to solve (and philosophers are arguably just extra baggage.)
Precisely.
I agree that this isn't how we use the word "description," but the point is that even if what is being described is incomprehensible, it can still be described in terms of physical description. Obviously meaningful sentences say much more about how neurons are connected than gibberish does, but they both contain physical description.
Basically, my point is that there is no need to invoke language as a "game" if it can be defined within physical description. (Although I will check out Wittgenstein, my misgivings that it sounds like he makes an unwarranted leap notwithstanding.)
"Truth is the cry of all, but the game of the few." George Berkeley
"Truth is always strange — stranger than fiction." Lord Byron
Fixing the world, one dumb idea at a time.
I was working with the concept of 'cause' in general.
Causation is temporal (i.e. is a structure of events within time) and I've seen strong arguments that it has to be spacial too.
Nonetheless, I would take each case on it's own merits.
Perhaps I should say that I am yet to come across a concept of non-physical causation that didn't suffer from a serious problem.
I've heard that there are more specific arguments in metaphysics that have analysed the general concept of causation and made arguments based on that.
In the meantime, I'm happy to take each case as it comes.
I see it as a conceptual problem.
The 'gap' between mental and physical is simply a gap between different concepts for different purposes.
Different language games. My solution to the mind-body problems certainly doesn't need a paradigm shift.
Physics would stay exactly as it already is.
Physicists deal with problems definined within the language game of physics.
If physics was our only form of knowledge, i.e. the only language game with propositions in it then yes, philosophers would be more or less out of a job.
If mind is a different language game then it is not a job for physicists, but for psychologists.
And it would be for philosophers to show how the two disciplines related to each other.
Maybe you can deduce some kind of physical proposition from them, but that's not what's relevent.
The point I was making was that they contain meaning that
Physics could describe the world that the language game took place in, would describe the rules by which the game functioned and how concepts within it were applicable but the concepts would not be physical concepts. They would still not be a part of the physical language game.
The thing is, our understanding is the root of the understanding.
Language games are the key to understanding.
Therefore language games are more fundamental than a physical description rather than vice versa.
Wittgenstein didn't make this leap btw.
It was already common sense amongst philosophers that language was more fundamental than physical descriptions.
In other words, mental events and physics are different linguistic "games," and the fact that they don't jive completely is not surprising. This doesn't really answer anything. It just says physics isn't responsible for explaining it.
Let's take two physical events: a star's fusion reaction and the brain's self perception. Given that both of these are physical events, we ought to be able to describe and break down the self-perception in the same way that we have of the star's fusion. The problem is that, as Leibniz pointed out, perception is of a nature that is not conducive to being deconstructed the way stellar fusion is, ergo of two equally physical events, one needs no explanation. This is clearly a double-standard. You just can't compartmentalize the field you hold to be central like this.
And here you go exporting difficulties again. Might I remind you that your position is that everything is by nature a physical effect of one form or another? If your position were consistently applied, sending this problem over to psychology should yield nothing because psychology is just physics studying one class of objects in particular: human brains.
Your position asserts that the language of physics includes everything, and now you are asserting it doesn't (and doesn't need to) include this in particular because it is of a different language. This makes no sense because on the one hand asserting every interaction is physical makes physics into the "master" language, but then when something that can't be contained within that language is encountered, it's just exported to another field and ignored.
In other words.
1. Language is how understanding is defined
2. Understanding is required before physical description is possible
3. Therefor language is more basic than physical description.
Problem: This inevitably only applies to individuals. The reverse is an equally valid syllogism, but has an opposite conclusion. Which is correct?
1. The universe is defined by physical interactions OR the universe can be completely defined by physical description
2. The mind works by the physical interactions OR the mind works in terms that can be physically described.
3. Therefor the physical descriptions of how the human mind works (your syllogism) is secondary to physical description.
"Truth is the cry of all, but the game of the few." George Berkeley
"Truth is always strange — stranger than fiction." Lord Byron
Fixing the world, one dumb idea at a time.
Before we go on, I just wanted to say how much I'm enjoying this.
I get the feeling that you're really reading what I say and your rebuttals tend to be pretty well thought out.
Even though where I disagree it's a respectful disagreement.
Keep it coming!
Who said self perception was a physical event?
I agree that it indirectly refers to a physical event, but it involves mental concepts such as 'perception' which aren't defined in pure physical language.
When we use the word perception we are using mental language and such a term can only be understood in the terms of the mental language game.
You don't seem to understand my position.
I am an ontological physicalist.
I believe that everything that exists is physical and physical events have purely physical causes.
Why should should that restrict my language to talking about "existing things" and "causes of physical events".
Language has lots of uses and describing the causal world of existing things is only one example of many uses.
Then I should clarify.
Physics is not a master language.
There is no master language games, just different ones that we use for different purposes.
What seems to have interested you is that as language is a phenomenon in the physical world, it is therefore one described by the language game of physics.
Therefore physics describes all language games.
From here you make a further jump that all language games are subsets of the physical language game.
I'll explain why that further jump is incorrect.
Using the physical language game I might describe a scene involving a man and a post box.
I can describe the man's bodily movements, his pronounciation of the word "post box" in accordance to the rules of the language game of physics.
So I am describing him following the rules of the physical language game, using the language of physics.
However, when I describe him saying "post box", I am not defining 'post box' in physical language, rather I am giving a physical description of him playing the language game of physics.
Likewise if he was to start counting "One, two, three...", I would not be defining numbers within the language game of physics, I would be using the language of physics to describe a scene where he plays the language game of maths. So there would be a physical description of mathematical words being used, not an example of them being defined within the language game of physics as physical concepts themselves.
Do you see the difference?
When I say "the man was next to the postbox" I use the physical concept postbox to describe the scene.
When I say "the man said the word 'postbox' " I am using different physical concepts to describe him using the word postbox, rather than using it as a physical concept itself.
Do you get the difference?
That's why physics can describe language games being played out, but that doesn't mean that concepts in these other language games will be concepts within the language game of physics. They will still be separate language games.
It's a difficult distinction to express but I think you'll get what I mean.
That's more or less spot on!!
I have a problem with number 3.
I don't believe that the 'mind' has a physical description.
I don't believe that the mind is a concept within the physical language game.
You have a point that my concept of the understanding requires the language game of mind to be in place, but I have no problem in admitting that.
I believe that certain language games need to be in place before we have understanding and can reason.
Although there are connections between the language games of physics and mind, they are still separate language games with separate rules.
The basic idea of atheism is "non-physical entities need not apply." While subtle differences may manifest themselves, this is the basic idea.
So what we have here is a language system that cannot be sufficiently defined by physical description. Given that non-physical entities are non-existent, the only valid conclusion is that there is more to physics than only said description.
If physics can only describe and a specific known object cannot be defined by physical description, then said object must be non-physical.
(The only alternative I can see for this is to create a second definition of physics that can do something other than describe, but this would lead to equivocation problems.)
...But you've already said that belief in non-physical entities is inconsistent. I can't say that I completely comprehend your position yet, but I think that you're involving a non-physical entity (via languages and games) and either mis-attributing them or just not fully realizing what you're doing.
"Truth is the cry of all, but the game of the few." George Berkeley
"Truth is always strange — stranger than fiction." Lord Byron
Fixing the world, one dumb idea at a time.
Ontological physicalism is "Something exists if, and only if, it is physical"
Who said anything about that?
I actually said that the system itself was describable, just that concepts within the system were defined by the system.
I.e. The language of physics describes the system. The concepts are defined within this second system rather than the system of physics.
Instead this second system is described by physics as a whole, but when it comes to individual concepts within the second system, they are defined by the system that physics describes rather than defined by the system of physics.
It's quite simple.
I say that everything that exists is physical.
Everything that has a causal effect on the physical world is physical.
Yes, we have concepts outside physics.
No, they don't refer to 'existing things'.
They are concepts with a different usage.
I hold to ontological physicalism, not conceptual physicalism.
Sorry 'bout the delay. Things have been hectic again, and to get an idea of what I mean, if anything in this post seems incoherent, it's probably because I've gone 36 hours with 45 minutes of sleep. You get the idea.
In other words, everything falls under the system of physics, but not everything can be put into the language of physics. In it's essence, this is the same position as my own "physics itself." The only real difference is it is somewhat more articulated and uses slightly different vocabulary (although once the association is made, both vocabularies should have approximately the same validity.) Before I push this any further, I want to hear your response.
I would venture that physics isn't a language at all. The human endevour is a model, "physics itself" is an axiomatic system.
Oh, by the way, I found an example of what I would call an a priori proof about the nature of physics. On page 99 in Godel, Escher, Bach, Hofstadter creates an argument that mathematics must be true in all conceivable worlds. Mathematics (and hence it's utility to model) is true a priori. This is also the source of my suspicion that "physics itself" is an axiomatic system, just without a human model counterpart with every variable either known or known of.
Granted, this is a radically different kind of a result from Einstein's Theory of Relativity. I guess this illustrates what I said earlier that an a priori proof would apply to a different aspect of physics than empirical studies.
"Truth is the cry of all, but the game of the few." George Berkeley
"Truth is always strange — stranger than fiction." Lord Byron
Fixing the world, one dumb idea at a time.
Hey you two, I think this Hofstadter dude, author, might interest you.
"I Am a Strange Loop" , is a book he wrote
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=I+Am+a+Strange+Loop&btnG=Google+Search
Hofstadter had previously expressed disappointment with how Gödel, Escher, Bach was received. In the preface to the twentieth-anniversary edition, Hofstadter laments that his book has been misperceived as a hodge-podge of neat things with no central theme. He states: "GEB is a very personal attempt to say how it is that animate beings can come out of inanimate matter. What is a self, and how can a self come out of stuff that is as selfless as a stone or a puddle?"
Yeah , how? .....
Atheism Books.
All of this reminds of Einstein, the Frank Zappa of numbers, who basically said, Sorry for my math, I hardly get it myself, but don't worry about it ! BTW, he was a big buddha fan !
Atheism Books.
Lol! That time of year eh?
It's the single part of being a student that I don't miss.
Got any plans for when it's all over?
You seem to have it the other way around to me.
I am saying that the language of physics describes all 'things', but there is more to language than describing things.
So that means that there will be more to language than just physics, language that serves a different purpose to describing things.
Your position is the other way around, saying that language falls short of describing all things, hence your concept of 'physics itself'.
Compare the words "hello" and "table".
We can have physical descriptions of them being said or written, physical descriptions of their use in situations.
However, this is different to whether they are defined in the language of physics.
"Table" refers to a physical object, so not only is it's use described within physics, it's actually a word within the langauge of physics.
I.e. people use it to describe physical things.
"Hello", on the other hand, doesn't refer to an object.
So while it's use might be describe physically, it's not a word we'd use when describing the physical world.
There are no theoretical theories on the substance of 'hello' - it's just not how we use that word.
Cool. My friend lent me the book so I'll read it and get back to you.
As it happens, I already agree with the proof's conclusion, that mathematics must be true in all conceivable worlds.
I also agree that mathematics is a priori - that is the truths are determined purely by reason rather than empiricism.
I'm not sure how that relates to your position as 'physics in itself' but I'll explain how it relates to mine:
Any conceivable world is a model. If we can conceive of a world then we have a model of it.
Seeing as models are constructed using mathematics then it quite obviously follows that every conceivable world will have a mathematical structure.
If someone is describing a scene then the scene must have the right kind of structure that allows it to be describable by language.
It's questions like this about structure that provide what a priori truths we have about the physical world.
It's this structure that we investigate in modern metaphysics.
It soon becomes clear that it is ultimately the structure of our understanding that is under investigation here.
What Einstein proved was that certain propositions on science were one we used to think were a priori were actually empirical.
E.g. We assumed that space must be Euclidean.
Einstein proved that the structure of space and time was something that was also subject to empirical investigation.
Rather than have a structure of spacetime that we could assume as standard, we needed to look at various possible models and investigate which one was most supported by the evidence.
Huh? I've heard that a Nobel Lauriet for quantum physics (sp?) has quoted that book (don't ask me when and where, I don't know.) Sure it may not have sold as many copies (no author can ever sell enough copies) but the reviews I've seen were all that it was obscenely good...just darn near impossible to read all the way through.
Yeah. 24 straight hours of Resident Evil 4 (I envy greatly my friend who has it for Wii. The Wii version has to be the most awesome game yet made) and a DnD party which will probably leave me even more sleep deprived than I already am.
Perhaps, but I'm pretty sure there's a problem with your position:
1. Language does things that cannot be physically described, ergo physics cannot be physically described.
2. Language is defined within physical events within the brain, ergo language is physically defined or is defined within a physical event.
Last time I checked, to be able to "define" something required being able to describe it to the point that all of its aspects had been described, so these statements are mutually exclusive. If language cannot be physically described, it cannot be physically defined, therefore language becomes a non-physical event. If language can be physically defined, it can be physically described, therefore it is a purely physical event (but also is physically describable.)
The only solution that I can come up with is that you are equivocating two meanings of physics, and just not telling me. On the one hand with physical description of language, you define physics as physical description. On the other with "no non-physical events" physics drops the description part and becomes causal. When I apply the causal definition to describe language OR when I bring the description definition physical events, you call foul play and insist on using the other definition until we talk about the other field. (Ignore Italics, my browser is goofing.)
Seeing as models are constructed using mathematics then it quite obviously follows that every conceivable world will have a mathematical structure.
If someone is describing a scene then the scene must have the right kind of structure that allows it to be describable by language.
It's questions like this about structure that provide what a priori truths we have about the physical world.
It's this structure that we investigate in modern metaphysics.
It soon becomes clear that it is ultimately the structure of our understanding that is under investigation here.
What Einstein proved was that certain propositions on science were one we used to think were a priori were actually empirical.
E.g. We assumed that space must be Euclidean.
Einstein proved that the structure of space and time was something that was also subject to empirical investigation.
Rather than have a structure of spacetime that we could assume as standard, we needed to look at various possible models and investigate which one was most supported by the evidence.
Yes and no. Like I said, if we can prove something a priori about physics, it will be of a different nature than we are used to dealing with. To put things in linguistic terms, things we might prove a priori would be syntactic, while the laws (like gravity, etc.) are rules about how variables interact within that syntax. The problem with Euclidean Geometry was that it was assumed it was syntactically true, but it has turned out to be variabilic.
"Truth is the cry of all, but the game of the few." George Berkeley
"Truth is always strange — stranger than fiction." Lord Byron
Fixing the world, one dumb idea at a time.