Debate 6 Discussion: Whether Truth Exists in a Deterministic Universe: Philosophy Forums

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Debate 6 Discussion: Whether Truth Exists in a Deterministic Universe

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Debate 6 Discussion: Whether Truth Exists in a Deterministic Universe

Socrastein
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Posted 12/11/04 - 12:33 AM:	#21
If Mariner could answer this, or AKG could, I'd like to see where the parallels between the 5 steps of communication are in regard to protein synthesis through DNA and RNA. Assuming my biology is correct the DNA is unzipped and RNA molecules line up along the 'rungs' and form an RNA strand. Then a bunch of amino acids line up along this RNA strand in an order according to the structure of the RNA, and you have a protein. What is the encoding? Where is the transmission of a message? What is that message? Where is the decoding, and who's doing it? I can only see stimulus (Chemical processes that start this construction of proteins) and feedback, if you stretch it a bit, in that something happens. But stimulus and feedback don't make communication. There's no interpretive mechanism receiving messages and translating them into understandable meaning that is then acted upon - but again, biology was years ago and its more than likely I'm just leaving stuff out.
"The time has come for people of reason to say enough is enough. Religious faith discourages independent thought, it's devisive, and it's dangerous." -Richard Dawkins

AKG
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Posted 12/11/04 - 01:11 AM:	#22
Well Socrastein, I actually hate biology and know nothing of it. But I would think that whatever these molecules do can be treated as stimulus-and-response scenarios. In 5 steps, we have: 1. Stimulus 2. Encoding - The DNA is taking the stimulus and processing a response 3. Transmission - The response from DNA 1, and what will be the stimulus for DNA 2 4. Decoding - DNA 2 receives the transmission as stimulus, and is processing a response 5. Feedback - The response from DNA 2. If something happens to DNA 1, which in turn makes DNA 2 do something, which in turn sends some chemical message to DNA 1, then it's a purely stimulus-and-response scenario, and if we sufficiently anthropomorphisize these behaviours, we can essentially say that the 5 steps of communication just occured. There's no interpretive mechanism receiving messages and translating them into understandable meaning that is then acted upon. Although monkeys are more like us then single DNA molecules, did you show that monkeys achieve some understandable meaning and DNA don't? It's easy to assume since monkeys are like us, but you did not show it, technically, and Mariner gets points for spotting that.
"The only reason we die... is because we accept it as an inevitability." -- Stewie "To enslave nuance to dogma is folly." -- Lord Hillyer

dreamweaver
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Posted 12/11/04 - 03:48 PM:	#23
AKG wrote: Just because God knows everything, including all your choices, it doesn't mean your choices aren't free. He knows the free choices you're going to make, that doesn't mean he forced them. Similarly, a forced argument is not irrational. If some being evolves to be a rational machine, then its arguments will be forced and rational. I didn't see any relationship between the two examples, but hey. I believe the argument above concentrates on the idea that debate includes people convincing one another of an argument; instead of forcing it on them. An example that comes to mind is: if a hypnotist, say, makes you believe, when you are next conscious, that you really are a chicken, do you actually believe this? Would it be correct to say that he did? I also think Socrastein accounts for falsehood (although I don't see why it was necessary) Any theory of truth must also account for falsehood; one of the requisites.
Dos moi pou sto kai kino taen gaen. ~ Archimedes

AKG
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Posted 12/11/04 - 06:56 PM:	#24
dreamweaver wrote: I didn't see any relationship between the two examples, but hey. I believe the argument above concentrates on the idea that debate includes people convincing one another of an argument; instead of forcing it on them. An example that comes to mind is: if a hypnotist, say, makes you believe, when you are next conscious, that you really are a chicken, do you actually believe this? Would it be correct to say that he did? What does that example have to do with anything? And what is the distinction between convincing someone and forcing it on them, and why is it that a deterministic machine can't be convinced? If convincing and forcing are the same, then there's no problem. If they're different, then I don't think the difference can have anything to do with choice. Convincing is when you provide arguments for a position that, when evaluated by the other person, leads him to conclude that your position is correct. Well, whatever your evaluation process is, let a deterministic machine evolve to follow the same process, and convincing happens just the same. There's no reason why a deterministic machine can't evolve to follow the same process. Again, since it's nonsensical to speak of a completely free choice, a deterministic machine can work by the same processes. Suppose you have some criteria for evaluating some arguments. Well, if you chose these criteria, then you did so for a reason (choosing for no reason is contradictory, or we could say that quantum particles pop into existence by choice). Again, we have that choice must be preceeded by reasons, but reasons need not be chosen (i.e. I may base my decision on the reason that it ensures I don't starve, and I don't choose to need food, it's forced on me by nature). So, ultimately, whatever evolutionary process that led you to come to have your criteria for evaluating arguments, we let the same process happen for a deterministic machine. It will have the same reasons to accept the same arguments, and it will be convinced or not convinced just as you would.
"The only reason we die... is because we accept it as an inevitability." -- Stewie "To enslave nuance to dogma is folly." -- Lord Hillyer

dreamweaver
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Posted 12/12/04 - 03:21 AM:	#25
AKG wrote: What does that example have to do with anything? I thought it would be quite obvious. The person, in that example, is "forced" to believe, and say something. The same occurs in a deterministic Universe, but it happens all the time. So, I guess I still have the same question: would it be correct to say that the person in question really believes that he is a chicken?
Dos moi pou sto kai kino taen gaen. ~ Archimedes

AKG
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Posted 12/16/04 - 05:41 PM:	#26
dreamweaver wrote: I thought it would be quite obvious. The person, in that example, is "forced" to believe, and say something. The same occurs in a deterministic Universe, but it happens all the time. So, I guess I still have the same question: would it be correct to say that the person in question really believes that he is a chicken? Again, why cannot someone be convinced in a deterministic universe? You don't become convinced because you choose to be convinced. You become convinced because you reason a certain way, and the argument agrees with your manner of reasoning. And as I've tried to argue, the manner by which you reason comes about by a deterministic process. This process includes choice, but I don't believe choice and determinism are incompatible. I do, however, believe that the use of words "free choice" are a little fuzzy, and whatever it may be, if it is to exist, a purely deterministic being can have it too. I don't think free choice contradicts determinism, it contradicts itself, in a way. Or, perhaps, it is not a term that should be used in an objective context, only in a subjective, small-scale context where, for one, we don't question things like why we like what we like. The hypnotism example is irrelevant. Whether the person believes he's a chicken or not doesn't matter. Assume he does, so what? Being convinced is different from being hypnotized, but being convinced doesn't require something that a deterministic being can't have.
"The only reason we die... is because we accept it as an inevitability." -- Stewie "To enslave nuance to dogma is folly." -- Lord Hillyer

dreamweaver
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Posted 12/17/04 - 09:38 AM:	#27
AKG wrote: The hypnotism example is irrelevant. Whether the person believes he's a chicken or not doesn't matter. Assume he does, so what? Being convinced is different from being hypnotized, but being convinced doesn't require something that a deterministic being can't have. You keep saying that, but I can't see in the slightest how it's irrelevant. In both cases, the person is clearly "forced" to believe something. Now, when the person is hypnotised, and outright declares that he's a chicken, and -- for all we know -- he really does at the time, would it really be alright to say that he, himself actually believes it (if we were to know that he was hypnotised), or is he just expressing what the hypnotist wants him too. I personally wouldn't think it proper to say that he believes it. If someone asks me why, I realised that my immediate answer -- the first one that came to mind -- was, quite simply, that it's because he was forced to believe it. Whether this is a valid response or not we can discuss (and is still questionable), but one thing's for sure -- that, I believe, would be the same immediate response for a lot of people.
Dos moi pou sto kai kino taen gaen. ~ Archimedes

Mariner
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Posted 12/19/04 - 03:47 PM:	#28
AKG wrote: Again, why cannot someone be convinced in a deterministic universe? You don't become convinced because you choose to be convinced. Why not? To "become convinced of" X is to accept it as true. Truth, as Socrastein and I agreed, is conformity of proposition to fact. In other words, you are addressing the issue of validity. Surely a deterministic system can ascertain the validity of a syllogism or not, by following simple (algorithmic) rules. But no deterministic system can ascertain the soundness of an argument, because that rests on a judgment of the premises, and this judgment does not follow algorithmic rules. The question is how can anyone judge the soundness of premises in a deterministic universe. At the bottom of it, there is a choice; the choice to accept sense-data as true, the choice to accept "common sense" (in the technical, Aristotelian-Kantian meaning) as true, etc.
"In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't." -- Blaise Pascal "The more I am by myself and alone, the more I have come to love myths" -- Aristotle in his later years

AKG
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Posted 12/21/04 - 09:56 PM:	#29
Mariner wrote: In other words, you are addressing the issue of validity. Surely a deterministic system can ascertain the validity of a syllogism or not, by following simple (algorithmic) rules. But no deterministic system can ascertain the soundness of an argument, because that rests on a judgment of the premises, and this judgment does not follow algorithmic rules. That's false. Judgment can follow algorithmic rules. Why shouldn't it? The question is how can anyone judge the soundness of premises in a deterministic universe. At the bottom of it, there is a choice; the choice to accept sense-data as true, the choice to accept "common sense" (in the technical, Aristotelian-Kantian meaning) as true, etc. I don't choose to accept sense data. What the heck would that even mean? I receive sense data, whether I like it or not. A machine can receive sense-data just as any person could. At any rate, a machine can choose just as you can. Do you choose to accept common sense for no reason? If so, then I don't think it should really be called a choice, and I don't think some choice made for no reason can be used as the basis of assessing soundness. Whatever reason you accept things for, a machine can accept things for the same reason. After all, you don't choose the reasons that lead you to choose common sense.
"The only reason we die... is because we accept it as an inevitability." -- Stewie "To enslave nuance to dogma is folly." -- Lord Hillyer

AKG
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Posted 12/21/04 - 09:59 PM:	#30
dreamweaver wrote: You keep saying that, but I can't see in the slightest how it's irrelevant. In both cases, the person is clearly "forced" to believe something. Now, when the person is hypnotised, and outright declares that he's a chicken, and -- for all we know -- he really does at the time, would it really be alright to say that he, himself actually believes it (if we were to know that he was hypnotised), or is he just expressing what the hypnotist wants him too. I personally wouldn't think it proper to say that he believes it. If someone asks me why, I realised that my immediate answer -- the first one that came to mind -- was, quite simply, that it's because he was forced to believe it. Whether this is a valid response or not we can discuss (and is still questionable), but one thing's for sure -- that, I believe, would be the same immediate response for a lot of people. What does this have to do with what I said? You are convinced of a person's argument. A machine can also be convinced by an argument. Whatever the basis for your decisions was, the machine can also have as a basis for its decision.
"The only reason we die... is because we accept it as an inevitability." -- Stewie "To enslave nuance to dogma is folly." -- Lord Hillyer

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