User talk:Lacatosias

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In article Descriptivist theory of names, the following does not make complete sense; maybe something was lost in edit. Did you originally write this para? --Philogo (talk) 13:26, 28 November 2007 (UTC)


In general, descriptivist theories can be formalized very simply by letting p be a proper name, D be a description or family of descriptions associated with p by speakers and...D*...be a sentence that arises from...n...by replacing one or more occurrences of n with D*. If D is a single description, D*=D and if D is a family of descriptions D1...Dk, then D* is the complex description "the thing of which most, or a sufficient number, of the claims: it is D1...it is Dk are true."

Lacatosias, please move your talk archives to User talk:Lacatosias/Archive... as opposed to Talk:Lacatosias\Archive . Thank you! --Kevinkor2 11:04, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Please make two changes to the page names:

  • Use prefix "User talk" as opposed to "Talk".
  • Use forward slash "/" (a.k.a. Unix directory separator) instead of backslash "\" (a.k.a. DOS directory separator).

Let me know if you want help with this!

--Kevinkor2 11:09, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Block

I see you got blocked the other day. See it as a duelling scar. Honour. edward (buckner) 11:52, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

  • Please notice that the FAC process has gotten even more ludicrous and anal-retentive than it was when I left back in November. Harvard, Harvard hybrid or cite.php anyone? Thompson Gale numbers???
  • Is the SEP a professional on-line journal?? It has NO page numbers, no ISBNs, and no other fluffy bullshit. The definition of professional,though means something like "paid occupation", as opposed to Wikipedia which, by definition, is amateur!! Nuts, just TOTALLY and IRREMEDIABLY fucking NUTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 13:34, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, it has no page numbers for books anyway and there are no idiotic, robotic templates at all. What a waste of time.

The FA process is a waste of time. All it takes is for one yahoo to complain on behalf of some dubious stylistic preference in order for the article to be denied. What do you care what such people think? Nobody yearns for the approval of bureaucrats. { Ben S. Nelson } 22:16, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
I don't care. I was just observing that it had actually worsened (something I thought impossible) over the last several months. Why the heck did I get pulled into another one? Well, I'm nuts!! Anyway, it IS such complete nonsense and they all continue to take themselves so grotesquely seriously that I wish someone with greater creative writerly skills than I would make a novelistic satire of it or something. Maybe I'll try it myself. --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 08:35, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Musings on the suck of Wikipedia

I see that even User:Jmabel has been driven off after contributing solidly for about 5 years or something, and for the following reason, among others (see his user page):
This was not intended as a threat, it was a serious gauge of not becoming overly committed to a collaborative project that was not entirely headed the way I would want it to, that was increasingly forgetting that Ignore all rules was supposed to be one of the cardinal rules, and that was taking itself too damn seriously (while, at the same time, showing far too much toleration for some utter trolls).
You know, now that I think of it, Wikipedia is very much like the old Soviet Union: idealistic, utopian, radically egalitarian and anarchistic in principle and in origin, eventually becoming a vast Leviathan of layer upon layer of bureaucracy, laws, regulations, recommendations, codes and codicils.
99% of most constant OCD-demented contributors' time (the nomenclatura) is now spent debating and discussing rules, codes and other procedural/structural nonsense; the vast majority of serious writers, experts and so on just ignore them all; and the ever-augmenting transfinite number of laws and codes are enforces completely arbitrarily. Trolls, vandals and other nuts are good because they give the impression that Wikipedia is free-rolling, open and all of that. Critics of trolls, experts and so on are regulated out of existence by the rules because they are a threat to the 10-year-old administrators and bureaucrats. --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 09:10, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
Too bad about Jmabel. I liked him. Anyway, it's the nature of social systems generally. The sociologists call it the iron law of oligarchy. So long as it's easier to react by habit than to act by thinking, and it's on average easier to influence through command than through reason, these static law-ish societies will emerge out of active collective efforts. That's pretty much the story of civilization in a nutshell, really. Almost beautiful how predictable it is; almost game-theoretic. { Ben S. Nelson } 13:28, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, if oligarchy is inevitable, one may as well join up and become a member of the oligarchs or a foot-soldier for the elite or whatever. Most of my relatives over here have come to subscribe to a form of this view in one way or another in order to survive. There's only one problem for me: it makes my stomach turn, morally speaking, and I am far too obstinate and rebellious to submit that easily (non servium). I have managed to find a way to live without bending over though....but at a horrendous and incalculable price!! But, then, "What do I know"? I used to worry about this a great deal. More recently, the real problem has become "what the hell difference does it make to anything"?--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 12:42, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Well that's a serious dilemma. If a man decides to view things in terms of only short-term success at influencing the social world around him, then he is being shallow. The fact is that it's a mug's game to try to justify moral duties only according to short-term consequences on the world. Obviously, any given person can't control the world, and may not be able to influence very many people in the long run. The result is fatalism. (fragment of post by Ben)
What moral duties are you talking about? Is there a moral duty to acquire knowledge? How much knowledge must one acquire? what kind of knowledge? How does one acquire it? When one acquires it, what then? I believe that there might be a moral duty to share it. But where does such a weird belief come from and how is it justified? Natural selection?? The reciprocal benefits of social cooperation? What if sharing the knowledge becomes impossible and/or extremely limited in nature to the point of non-existence? And what if the benefits of social cooperation are either not forthcoming or not felt as meaningful? What has anyone gained? Seriously now: if I were to cease studying, reading and acquiring knowledge (indeed if I were to cease to exist at this moment), every part of the social world, EXCEPT my most immediate local surroundings in the SHORT-TERM, would not be minimally altered. In the long-term, the non-existence of the vast majority of people, taken one at a time, would leave things almost entirely unchanged, as if they had never been in the first place, even to their immediate families. Many other people WILL be able to substitute for any long-term knowledge that I may have had to give. This almost guaranteed by the simple fact of the enormous size of the population and the ever-increasing amount of education in the West. I see no loss in regard to society at all, ether short or long term of my ceasing to acquire knowledge and becoming, say, a Trappist monk. In any case, knowledge per se is neither morally beneficial nor detrimental, but rather how one USES it. I could learn an extraordinary amount about chemical engineering or microbiology and use this knowledge, combined with other practical skills, to learn to devise more potent weapons of mass destruction. I could them make a lot of money by selling such knowledge and/ or such devices to terrorist organizations. It seems that if I can't justify the pursuit of knowledge as, in some sense, beneficial to myself, I can't justify it simpliciter. (Lacatosias fragment)
I had no specific duties in mind except all those that would be generated or relevant to your general statement about resistance to oligarchy. I take it from the thrust of your other remarks that you had in mind duties to knowledge and dissemination of it, and that you connect this with resistance. This is entirely understandable.
Ah hah!! Now I see what happened. No, I was making no such connection between resistance to oligarchy and acquisition of knowledge in my comment above (at least not intentionally). I was just scribbling stream-of-consciousness style. Nothing was intended to follow from anything else. I was stating my moral repugnance to non-resistance and complicity to oligarchy and my own ability to resist it, to some extent at least, in real life. Then, I asked the rhetorical question: what do I know?, as in "Maybe I'm wrong, and the others are right. Who am I to judge them?" Lastly, I observed that something that has been bothering me lately is this question of the utility or inutility, and more fundamentally the psychological motivations behind, MY own obsession with knowledge-acquisition. Does my lack of knowledge of the Greek language make me any less of a human being in some sense? Am I less worthy of something? Does my knowledge of Italian make me any better? What do I get from the study of arguments about the nature of propositional attitudes? In what way does this have any significance at all? After two semesters of chemistry courses, I knew a good deal more about chemistry than I did before I started. Was I morally or aesthetically improved in some way, just by virtue of the possession of that knowledge? Now that I have forgotten almost all of it, have I become inferior in some way? It seems, based on such considerations, that knowledge in and of itself has absolutely no value outside of some relevant social/occupational/interpersonal context. But this is not quite satisfying. I actually think that knowledge per se (just the pure and selfish accumulation of information and interpretations of information) makes for a richer and more varied phenomenological experience of existence. It provides one with a larger tool kit with which to examine and manipulate the inner and outer world. With things like philosophy and literature, I think, it is especially the inner world that we are talking about. But even with science: I look at the world radically differently as a result of knowing something about evolutionary biology and its magnificent consequences: man has no special, privileged place in nature or the universe, so all life becomes elevated to a more noble and interesting status than under my childhood brainwashing scheme of the Great Chain of Being and creationism. There is no inherent push toward complexity nor any other teleological nonsense, so even the simplest forms are extraordinarily interesting. This makes for a different way of viewing and experiencing things. I don't think it makes for a necessarily morally improved person, but it makes for a different and broader person.


After all, it's pretty obvious that mass reliance upon habits, and upon myths over knowledge, is the culprit behind all kinds of unnecessary suffering that are totally oligarchical, bureaucratic, or generally systemic. (And concern for well being is, at some level, the origin of duty.)

A different discussion. The only problem I would point out is that, if the iron law of oligarchy is, in fact a law, then resistance of any kind is pointless. Personally, I suspect that what we have here is another example of the overcompensation of sociologists for their sense of inferiority with respect to natural science. Notice that natural scientists never use phrases like "IRON law". It is redundant. Either something is a law of nature and hence inviolable or it isn't. But sociologists now....hypotheses and dubious extrapolations based on limited and often distorted samples which are more frequently overturned than not, lead to IRON laws!! The point about knowledge here is that, to the extent that society has become, or may become, less oligarchical and bureaucratized because of the proliferation of knowledge (and I think this is indeed the case), then the iron law of oligarchy is falsified. It's difficult to judge whether, historically, one oligarchy is simply replaced by another, despite general society-wide increases in knowledge. But, it seems clear that ignorance is a great facilitator of tyranny, theocracy, etc.. It seems clear that modern Western nations, despite all their defects, are vastly less centralized and "closed", for lack of a better word, than non-Western societies and past societies. And this is largely the result of knowledge.
If that's so, then you're right, we do seem to have a duty to collect and disseminate knowledge. The consequences are delicate, though, because (as you indicate) knowledge can intensify suffering as much as it may relieve it. So this duty to knowledge must be a prime facie duty, not a categorical one. I agree when you say that it is a question of use (and I would add, consequences). Knowledge acquisition extends as a duty in certain contexts only so far as one thinks it is reasonable to believe that certain knowledge-projects have some impact on human wellbeing. One doesn't need to make sense of all their intellectual projects, of course, in entirely this light -- philosophy of language, for instance, is just plain interesting, but admittedly not going to save any babies from burning buildings. But to the extent there is a *duty* to knowledge and dissemination wrt some domains, it is guided by a concern for welfare. i.e., My original motives for contributing to Wiki were to reduce the barriers to knowledge for those rare persons who have a bit of wonder and curiosity about the world, for instance, and even to that extent it is connected (loosely) to a feeling for duty. It's mostly non-reciprocal, of course (except at a sufficient level of abstraction, as in "if I contribute, I follow a rule which inspires conduct which has the dim possibility of inspiring others to act similarly..." etc.) Duty usually is unrewarded. At some point, you just have to stop caring. Brings to mind my favorite Kant quote: "Virtue necessarily presupposes apathy" (in this case, toward external reward and recognition).
"My original motives..." Alright come on now. Let's out aside this ponderousness and get to the bottom, as Niethzche might have put it. So why is it that you continue this madness? Because you are MAD, just like the rest of us!! --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 14:19, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
Mad? Well, of course! That's a given. But I'm not continuing with any serious editing here for the timebeing. These days I spend my spare time in "absorb mode". i.e., I'm either watching old episodes of "The Twilight Zone" on the internet, or I'm finishing my read of GEB (though I'm quite sure I have not understood much of it). (I am absolutely delighted to observe that Hofstadter has anticipated the core tenets of cognitive semantics.) Then after I'm done GEB, I want to get back to my Cog-Sem text. Then back to the sanatarium. { Ben S. Nelson } 02:14, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
I've recently been introduced to this Steven Colbert phenomenon. I'm thoroughly addicted. Jon Stewart's alright as well, but Colbert is, as we say in Italy, "fortisimmo". It's about time some genuine left-wing commentators (even if only semi-serous and comedic) started infiltrating into the US mainstream media to counteract the hegemony of the Limbaugh and O'Reilly-like psychopaths that have been helping to theocratize and destroy the greatest nation on earth over the last 15 years or so.--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 08:09, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
That is an extreme and challenging notion of virtue. I don't think it "necessarily" does. It is very often the case that one does a good deed for others while also having egoistic concerns in mind (at least unconsciously). That particular mode of virtue, though, is the most difficult and hence probably one of the higher forms that exist. Sad to say, in my experience, one finds it very rarely, if at all. Are theists always expecting a reward in the afterlife, for example. I don't think so, but this is a long discussion. I have to stop here.--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 10:17, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
If everything you pointed out in the latter part of your post were true then there would not be a burgeoning, fat academy full of people who are more concerned with building barriers of jargon and fluffing their reputations than disseminating facts and cogent skepticism, and engaging in cooperative conversation. Sure, people are capable of knowledge acquisition. But they feel a need to have to corner the market on it, or else risk losing the ability to live life in relative comfort. { Ben S. Nelson }
Rather, one has to have a kind of rich view, where you justify moral duties in terms of a) possible consequences on the social world, and b) short-term consequences on oneself. a) Takes effect because we don't know how much we, as people, really have. Besides, the benefit of the mere possibility of successful improvement outweighs the cost of failure, no matter how inevitable that failure may be; simply because, all other things equal, hope is addictive, and if you can find a sensible place for hope in your cognitions, and protect it in a realistic way, then you're doing a service for others (whether they realize it or not).
What's the evidence for the claim that hope is addictive? And hope in what? Al Qaeda hopes for the creation of an Islamic caliphate and the dominance of the world. Politicians hope to stay in power and make money., regardless of ho much damage they have inflicted on the rest of the world, and so on. Hope is a relational concept. There's no such thing as just HOPE. "I have hope" is not complete. That is, it tells one nothing. "I possess a certain agreeable mental state!!" So what? You may be a megalomaniacal psychopath who feels an agreeable mental state toward the destruction of the Jewish race. Hitler hoped that the Jews would be wiped out and this was, tragically, very contagious and addictive indeed. Keep hope alive!! Good Christ. How does one measure the cost of failure? Is there some universal measuring device? Has this become standardized. The cost of failure on some high-school quiz is not the same as the cost of failure in the middle of brain surgery,which is not the same as the cost of the failure of preventing an asteroid from colliding with earth and annihilating 4/5 of the planet's habitable surface. Some failure is innocuous and some failure is absolutely not permissible. --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 09:18, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
Sure, but when I said "hope is addictive" I didn't mean to suggest that hope was always good. My remark on the goodness of hope was tied onto the idea of real improvement, genuine improvement -- not the immoral movements you mention. Nevertheless, if you're looking for evidence for the addictiveness of hope, all of those examples do suffice -- one might add in a bit of Padre Pio to the mix if looking for further evidence... { Ben S. Nelson } 03:08, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

b) takes effect when you get that some ways of interacting are viscerally moronic and antisocial; and so long as it is granted that everyone has a right to some ethical "wiggle room" to decide independently what's moral and what isn't, then the ethicist has every right to act and think and speak according to the simple facts about what they can live with and what they can't. One hopes that such persons are able to adapt to the social world to survive, but it takes constant effort, since the social world is full of intelligent people who are very cunning at excusing mediocrity and law-bound insanity. Humor and beer help with the latter. { Ben S. Nelson } 18:28, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Let's try the following exercise: Cut out all the analytic jargon, replace it with ordinary language terms and then see what we end up with. --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 08:20, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
I've tried it. The output is a B- paper. In my experience, philosophy professors generally give out marks, not by the examination of logical validity, standardized inquiry into soundness and cogency, careful weighting of points and attention to measured argument and nuance, creative investigation, insight, or sensibly limited use of charity. Rather, they allocate marks according to the number of latin phrases you use in quick succession, and the number of contemporary names you might drop in edgewise. (The exception is in logic class, where none of that silliness is permissible. Gobless you, logic.) { Ben S. Nelson } 03:08, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
Hahaha!! Actually, the only times I have gotten B or B- papers in philosophy are on those occasions when I have disagreed with a professor. As social psyhologists demonsrated some time back, "being a yes-man pays off."

[edit] WikiProject History of Science newsletter : Issue II - May 2007

The May 2007 issue of the WikiProject History of Science newsletter has been published. You're receiving this because you are a participant in the History of Science WikiProject. You may read the newsletter or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Yours in discourse--ragesoss 06:09, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Your address

Hi, I sent you an email on an old address. Let me know if you don't receive.

ED edward (buckner) 10:56, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Further to which: it bounced with 'account disabled'. edward (buckner) 11:30, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
No, I just checked it a few minutes ago. Don't know what the problem is. In any case, I have several options these days. All variations on the same old theme. expat6719 AT yahoo DOT it; expat6719 AT gmail DOT com; and expat6719 AT alice DOT it. So if one doesn't work.... --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 12:05, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
Ah yes, I had expat7691. I'll try again. edward (buckner) 15:59, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
Ok, got it and replied. --Francesco Franco 08:24, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Conatus

Congratulations and thanks: Conatus is an FAC! It is good to have more philosophy articles there. -- Rmrfstar 21:50, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

You're welcome and good work on the article. --Francesco Franco 08:26, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Activity on Wikipedia:Expert Retention

You should be aware that User:SlimVirgin has removed you from the list in Wikipedia:Expert Retention. Mangoe 17:15, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm..I'm not sure what this means. Am I no longer considered an adequately-credentialed expert (never really claimed to be one in the first place and have, in fact, repeatedly disavowed the term as applied to me)? Am I no longer worthy of retention? (give me a break!!) Or does it mean I no longer subscribe to the principles and ideas represented in that document? This latter is probably true . Still, it would have been better to ask first instead of trying to mind-read, I guess. Somehow I don't find it terribly important. Thanks anyway.--Francesco Franco 10:05, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
I have a cousin who teaches theology at a nearby university. He's a biblical literalist and knows next to nothing about theology. He got the job through connections and political ass-kissing (which is how EVERYTHING is done in Italy)? Is he an expert? He's an idiot!! I can't prove this with any documents or certificates, you will just have to take my word for it. He IS a complete ignoramus. Period. But his credentials are greater than mine, since I have spent two-thirds of my life ill and house-bound, studying independently. I know one hell of a lot more than he does, I can assure you. --Francesco Franco 10:20, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
Oh...I have an even better example of an "expert" in philosophy with his own dedicated Italian wikipedia page. The person in question received an "honorary" doctorate after self-publishing three or our books related to the origins of life on earth. He never took a single course in philosophy in his life!! When I translated one of his books into English as a favor to a cousin, I had to correct about 300 factual errors, rewrite such things as incomplete sentences and other grammatical abominations, and try to make something coherent out of the whole damned mess. It was the abslute worst piece of non-elementary school writing I have ever read in my life. This is something I CAN prove. For anyone who can read Italian, I will post a copy of this man's philosophical magnum opus (ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!! LOLL!! collapse) and then you may judge for yourselves whether this....ummmm, clown deserved his honorary degrees and a page on the Italian wiki. Damn it, I REALLY with this thing were in English. No, I'm not just talking about some awkward and obscure post-modern style of writing either. This man is functionally illiterate and would fail any undergraduate course in philosophy probably anywhere but in Italy. He does have a great deal of money and strong mob ties, however. --Francesco Franco 10:40, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
Hey, I support whatever keeps them off the streets...! At best, if the work is that bad, you may be able to take him to the Hague for crimes against humanity. { Ben S. Nelson } 18:39, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
Here's the old boy's Italian Wikipedia page. Honors and awards all over the place (mostly local but not all)!! Seriously I suggested that he must be connected to the mob or something because I SIMPLY CANNOT understand how such a thing is possible. It's insane. If this guy is any kind of expert, then I am the greatest physicist since Richard Feyman. Greater than Feynman!! That's all I can tell you. Sorry, this stuff gets my goat bit.--Francesco Franco 09:21, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
I will have to put up a web site just to post this guy's "book" with my annotations and corrections in Italian (keeping in mind that Italian is my SECOND langauge!!) Do you know of anything analogous to this phenomenon outside of Italy? When I read this shit, I was so depressed and encouraged at the same time that I thought philosophy was basically all a scam and that I could scribble down some crap and become the next Kant overnight. HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!! That's BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!! Yet he's been named by some prestigious organization to be one of the "Immortals of Italy" and has been awarded by the Counsel of Ministers??? When I get back from the States, I will post it all in original and then in translation and everyone will judge for themselves. --Francesco Franco 09:40, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
I've never heard of anyone failing upwards outside of art, middle management, and/or politics. I vaguely hope that that sort of thing is quarantined to those fields which are entirely devoted to the art of deception. It sounds as if this fellow has written works for the public. I think that goes a long way. Mob ties would help too though. { Ben S. Nelson } 14:47, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] origins of the term 'analytic philosophy'

Alan Richardson, who teaches at U. of British Columbia, gave a paper on the history of the phrase several years ago. He pointed out that in its current usage, it only became widespread in the late 1940s (with Feigl and Sellars' anthologies), and seems to have replaced phrases such as "scientific philosophy" and other code-words for logical positivism. 271828182 16:04, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Interesting. So it seems that it was originally synonymous with logical positivism (probably was the actual term of art to refer specifically to logical positivism before "logical positivism") and then expanded out to all related logically/linguistically-oriented philosophy after the failure of the positivist program, and was also retrospectively applied to Moore, Russell, Wittgenstein, and even Frege. Sellars, given his anti-foundationalism and anti-phenomenalism, may even have been using this as some kind of peggiorative. Fascinating. Thanks. --Francesco Franco 08:01, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
You're welcome. (And thank you for your work on phil. pages here.) But Sellars identified himself as an analytic philosopher; AFAIK he never used it pejoratively. His early paper "Pure Pragmatics and Epistemology" is a good example of his view of what defines AP. 271828182 17:13, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
Excellent. I'll definitely look that one up. Thanks.--Francesco Franco 07:34, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fly Free will?!

An interesting story for you. [1]. I'm afraid of what's going to happen on the Free will page as this gets read by the general public. But, more interestingly, what do you think of it? I vacillate between thinking this is the danger of scientists trying to do philosophy, and wondering if some such non-random, non-externally determined (but still neurobiologically determined) behavior might underlie our illusion of conscious will. BTW, PLoS One has open peer commentary, so you might be able to add your comments here (I don't know what the registraction policy is) [2] Edhubbard 05:25, 16 May 2007 (UTC)


Free will is essentially an oxymoron — we would not consider it 'will' if it were completely random and we would not consider it 'free' if it were entirely determined,

With the obvious premise that, if I may be called an expert in any area of philosoph, free will is certainly not one of those areas. But there's seems to me to be the usual confusion and oversimplification right here: incompatibilism of freedom with fill-in-the-blank is just taken for granted in all these neuro-will discussions. Either indeterminism or determinism (or some combination of both--my own position) is true on this line, so freedom is impossible. But not for compatibilists of any of the millions of stripes, obviously. But, then, who cares about those navel-gazing idiots, say the neuros!! (0: Then he continues on in the same vein.

Specifically, their behavior seemed to match up with a mathematical algorithm called Levy's distribution, commonly found in nature.

So, does this mean that there behavior is predestined to follow a certain mathematical pattern or what? If so, then it it may not be biologically determined, but it is determined nonetheless.

There behavior lies somewhere between completely random and completely determined. So it is neither determinate nor indeterminate but something between. What does this mean? The universe is either causally closed in the sense that past events plus laws causally necessitate future events (determinism) or it is not (indeterminism).

Bizarre. I don't think they have shown anything other than the fact that flies behavior is not completely random but follows surprising patterns (chaos theory seems like a reasonable explanation) under circumstances in which it was assumed that it would be (for some poorly explained reason).--Francesco Franco 08:39, 16 May 2007 (UTC)


So, we have order in spontanuous (= unelicited, unprovoked, endogousenly generated) behavior. Is unelicited, endogenously-generated behavior that just happens to show a very specific mathematical pattern a good definiton for free will? If so, then such things as volcanoes would have free will, it seems to me. A function/faculty to generate spontaneous behavior? Maybe so, but what does this have to do with "the ability to do otherwise", reasons-responsiveness, or agent-causation and so on. It seems closest to the last, which is the least likely "libertarian" version of free will. Weird.--Francesco Franco 09:11, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Welcome back

Welcome back Francesco! I hope that your difficulties aren't directly related to being in the U.S., but I remember before that you had said that you felt much better when you aren't in the U.S. As for the experience that everything seems flat and so on, has anyone mentioned possible temporal lobe epilepsy? You know us neuros... My guess is that, even if the Docs can't track it down, there's something clearly going on in your brain. I assume that you've had an EEG to test for small seizures, which wouldn't lead you to have convulsions and all that, but which might lead to some pretty strange perceptual experiences. Other than that, something having to do with dissociation, but that gets to be pretty open ended and not very useful for helping you get at the root of what's bothering you.

Yes, climate almost certainly has some non-specifiable, indescribable role to play in this preposterous thing. All I can say is that it was unbelievably humid in that part of the States (near Albany, New York) for the entire three weeks. It is substantially less humid here in southern Italy, at the moment at least. I suspect that I have been feeling slightly better since I got back as a result. On the other hand, it may have been the heat itself that made things dramatically worsen. In that case, the summertime forecasts for southern Italy do not provide much reason for optimism and encouragement with respect to my health situation. Well, I just try to live through it from day to day with various coping strategies developed over the last fifteen or so years and by focusing my brain with 10,000% energy on whatever the heck I am doing at the moment. As far as tests, I had an EEG done some time back. I've also had about 4 Ct scans and one MRI. If there is anything going on there (and there obviously is, IMNSHO), it is apparently absolutely invisible and undetectable by the most advanced modern technologies. So I absolutely don't blame anyone for not finding the right diagnosis. I only insist that they have NOT found it and don't even have the slightest fucking clue. This is endlessly frustrating, and, on top of the ridiculous semi-torture of the symptoms, leads, naturally enough, to genuine maddening depression and occasional suicidal despair and hopelessness. But enough on the matter.


Anyway, as for neuro books, I would recommend Ramachandran's book, which is a somewhat more interesting introduction to some of the neurological syndromes and so on, but which won't completely satisfy your craving for hard data. You could go to the other end of the scale, and look at The Cognitive Neurosciences, 3rd Ed edited by Michael Gazzaniga, but that's probably too far the other way. A middle ground might be to look at the Cognitive Neuroscience: The Biology of the Mind textbook by Gazzaniga, Ivry and Mangun, or to look at A Student's Guide to Cognitive Neuroscience by Jamie Ward. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help, either with your perceptual experiences, or in terms of Cog. Neuro. reading. Best wishes, Edhubbard 14:38, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for these references. I'll look up which ones are available in English or Italian translation. --Francesco Franco 15:59, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

This is pure speculation, but: part of one's brain (presumably in the Occipital lobe, which handles visual information) examines the two-dimensional input from the eyes and outputs a 3D experience by way of "feature detectors". Some of these feature detectors only examine things that are immediately present before you. One might imagine that, if you (for whatever reason) had too many of this sort of feature detector active at one time, your brain would be trying to treat everything in its field of vision as if it were immediately present. One might imagine how this could sort of "overload" the brain, so to speak. If this were simply a genetic/biological anomaly, esp. at the neurological level, then it wouldn't seem to be surprising if nothing showed up on an MRI scan, which I presume were taken in order to find more obvious physical brain problems like scarring or tumors. (I don't know about EEGs.) That wouldn't explain how or why your problems seem to come and go, however. But if you're going into "research mode", those may be two avenues worth exploring first. { Ben S. Nelson } 21:58, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Hey Francesco, Following up on a couple of Ben's suggestions here. As for depth perception generally, although that begins in primary visual cortex (hell, it's wiki, I can link here) it continues on up through a number of regions in the dorsal stream. These then get used in the parietal lobe (in particular in the intraparietal sulcus) to guide ongoing behavior, like eye movements and reaching. However, what you're describing doesn't quite fit with what I think of when describing these functions in these areas. Ben is also right that something at the microcircuitry level wouldn't show up on a standard MRI scan. The spatial resolution that we normally use to look at the anatomy of the brain is about 1x1x1 mm, but this still includes thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of neurons (depending on the brain area) and 10-100 times more connections. So, as Ben says, whatever is going on, it's in the connections, which is too fine to see with current imaging techniques...(EH)
Yes indeed, I'm well aware of it. Unfortunately most clinical neurologists and/or psychiatrists that I have visited, both here and in the US, universally respond to this point by insisting point-blank that "if we can't find any organic basis for the symptoms with tests and the regular physical exams (knee-tapping, eye-motion, blood pressure, pupil inspection with light and so on), then it must be depression or some or other grab-bag disorder of exclusion. The trouble is that I have absolutely no, as far as I am able to describe the indescribable anyway, straightforward and clear-cut yes/no symptoms that fit the traditional categories: e.g., no paralysis, no numbness, no double-vision, no obvious episodic, semantic or other forms of memory loss, no vomiting, no motor compromise, etc.. Once, while in the hospital for other reasons, I had the second or third of a severe bout of rapidly spinning dizziness. The neuro was called in and notice a severe nystagmus, took the MRI to rule out cancer, etc.., then diagnosed Meniere's disease. The dizziness disappeared on its own. I was prescribed antivert for the dizziness and tenten something or other for the sense of pressure and other discomfort which he attributed to tension headache. Now, at the time, this was on top of Paxil,Xanax, Ambien, Welbutrin, Haldol, Cogent, and goodness knows what else. I ended up in a four-day semi-coma. I was taken off everything except Paxil and, eventually, Clonapin. Although the Paxil does nothing to ameliorate my symptoms, it is one of the few that seems to do no harm. The Clonapin knocks me out at night. But, you can see here part (only part!!) of the reason why I resist taking any more medications and am extraordinarily suspicious of clinical neurology and, above all, psychiatry. Though, as I've said I do not blame anyone and rail in indignation againt the medical profession (I used too!!) , I think the complexity of the brain is simply too overwhelming and that we haven't touched the tip of the tip of the tip of the epistemological iceberg here.(FF)
acknowledging these limitations is part of why us neuros are always quick to point out that our data just aren't good enough to conclusively rule out a lot of things... (EH)
Eh....Some are a little to quick, IMHO. I once visited the chief of neurology at Albany medical Center and was given about a three-minute glance and the usual reflex tests. He said: "How long have you suffered from anxiety disorders?" I said "I don't". End of visit. I once told another neuro that I seriusly suspected that there was an accumulation of fluid on the brain. Response: "stop reading medical books or you will imagine all kinds of things. To my mother: Your son is schizophrenic!!" What? No delusional thinking, no auditory or visual hallucinations, no paranoia, etc?? This verdict was overruled later by another neuro who insisted that I had been taking drugs. "No, I have never experimented with those sorts of drugs. A little pot every once in a while, but no psychedelics or crack or what have you". Ok. To mother: "your son has been taking drugs!!". Give me a break. The history of my experience with the medical profession in general is very long, often frightening and extraordinarily absurd. It should be made into a novel.(FF)
as for the EEG it's no good for where in the brain things are happening, but can pick up on when things are happening. Since epilepsy can be thought of (somewhat too simplistically) as large populations of neurons all firing off all at once, this clearly shows up in the EEG, which measures average electrical activity at the scalp. Because EEG has a long research and clinical history, clinicians know a number of signals that will appear in the EEG if someone has epilepsy, even during "inter-ictal" periods (between siezures). Since you said that turned up nothing, I would be less likely to think about the epilepsy idea, but wouldn't completely rule it out. One thing that might be interesting to look into is palinopsia. Do any of your symtoms sound like this? (EH)
I've never heard of that one. No, it doesn't quite fit, although fascinating. My symptoms are, in the first place, somewhat more amorphous, involve more than just perceptual distortions and are all intimately interrelated. Here's another stab: I often feel as if about ten-thousand pounds of crap were weighing down my head and that I need to squeeze this junk out of there somehow. And the perceptual oddities seem to grow out of these other phenomena. 'Tis very bizarre, to put it mildly.(FF)


When I get a chance, I'll ask Rama about this, and see if he has any ideas. I think he'll be gone to India for a while though, starting next week... and of course, none of this gets at why heat would influence, or other things like that. Edhubbard 22:14, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Many novelists have written works about their experiences with the medical establishment. "The Bell Jar" by Plath is a good one in that regard. I have plenty of stories myself, but they are borderline comical.
Just out of curiosity, when you say "weighing down your head", do you mean like a physical heaviness, or more of a weird amorphous mental-spiritual one? (I'm guessing that this is why you made the hypothesis about fluid in your brain.) That is, do you feel as though you can't physically move your neck because there's a physical burden? Or is it more like you feel a lack of strength or vitality to do it?
Based on your earlier remarks, it might help if you were to reduce optical stimuli when you're having that sort of episode. Ridiculous question, but: do you ever wear sunglasses? { Ben S. Nelson } 15:44, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I am using phrases like "weighing down", "crushing", "squeezing in a vice", and so on in a quite literal, physical sense. I can move my neck well enough, but it's a bit as if my head were being pushed constantly backward (opisthotonos-like) but does not actually fall backward, or forward (emprosthotonos-like) or sideways or, even, in several directions simultaneously. You see I did some research on this stuff back when it started, very mildly, years ago. Then I gave up. There are even more bizarre physical sensations which I simply cannot describe in words. I can only use vague metaphors and analogies: "it's as if"..."it's like"....etc.. What a fucking pain!! It's just a species of constant internal torture for which there are no words in any of the languages that I know. That, in itself, is torture.
Sunglasses are very helpful actually. I use prescription glasses, though, so I have to use tinted lenses. Unfortunately the ones I have now are not particularly tinted. I wasn't feeling quite this bad when I bought them. I need to get a new pair. At any rate, I don't like to carry on about my own problems beyond a certain point. It begins to feel disgustingly self-indulgent and pointless. I do the best I can under preposterous circumstances. --Francesco Franco 09:18, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
Here's the only profoundly desperate solution I can come up with at the moment: open up, take it out, fix it, kill it, or whatever needs to be done. Yeah, it's THAT bad actually!!--Francesco Franco 09:43, 14 June 2007 (UTC) No, fuck that!! Never mind. --Francesco Franco 15:23, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Needless to day, this sort of thing is not what I'm talking about here. It is just extraordinary and frightening the lengths people will go to deliberately alter (i.e. fuck up!"!) the states of their brains or consciousness, while I seek desperately to feel absolutely normal the way I did about 15 years ago. Nuts!!--Francesco Franco 12:04, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Re: talking about it, fair enough. But I'm really just sort of looking at it as an interesting philosophical problem. i.e., "for these effects {x,y,z}, what might the causes {a,b,c} be?"
It's interesting that sunglasses help with the dizziness and the overactive pupils. (If you're getting new specs, maybe try Reactint lenses, so you don't have to go back and forth between indoor and outdoor glasses.) I don't know if/how the feeling of pressure would relate to the disorientation. Does that go away when you put on sunglasses / focus on immediate objects / close your eyes, too? Or is there seemingly no correlation between the disorientation and the feeling of pressure? { Ben S. Nelson } 22:42, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
Philosophy?? You're kidding, of course, right? When has any philosophy/philosopher ever identified the cause of anything, much less an empirical phenomenon? Indeed, one of the main philosophical puzzles is to try to explain the nature and existence of causation itself, the relation of causes to effects and other meta-meta-meta level conceptual questions which will, in my opinion, almost certainly never be resolved. It may well be that philosophy simply generates these unanswerable, foundational puzzles to begin with and then seeks to perpetuate them through semantical/mathemectical/logical obfuscation, reification and over-theorizing.(It's funny how I've been feeling much more sympathetic toward these sort of late-Wittgensteinian/Rortyan ideas since I heard about the death of Richard Rorty. One thing I'm sure of is that philosophy should indeed stop talking itself so damned seriously and confess that, certainly not everything, but, at least, it itself is just a matter of interpretations, argumentations and persuasion. Leave facts, causes and hard data to science.) Anyway, it seems obvious that medical diagnosis (which is part science and part practical art) is precisely about determining what the cause(s) of symptoms x,y,z are. It usually involves a great deal of abductive reasoning, as well as some inductive generalizations and so on. But there is also an inescapably subjective element: my situation, my experiences and my bopy are not quite like anyone else's.
They almost certainly have Reactint and every other sort of optical wear in Italy. It is a mecca for that sort of thing. Be careful with the word "disorientation". Whenever I hear it used in a medical context, it almost always refers very specifically to space-time disorientation (i.e. "do you know where you are", "what day of the year it is?" and so on.) I am always quite well oriented in THAT sense, at any rate. The sunglasses don't do anything to reduce the dizziness. Dizziness, nystangmus and so on are only a very occasional phenomenon. Antivert doesn't help, but they usually pass on their own. I haven't had a serious bout in a few years, in fact. What the glasses seem to do is help filter out informational overload and the kind of perceptual distortions, oddities and "disorientation" (in some different, weaker sense of that word) that I tried to describe earlier. So, the dizziness (sensation of spinning extremly fast and vomiting) is NOT correlated with the other stuff. It is separate and clearly attributuble to Meniere's syndrome. Everything else (pressure, headache, cranial torture, perceptual stuff) IS strongly interrelated in some way. It is also constant and, generally, gets worse over time, notwithstanding the hundreds of medications I have been place on over the years. --Francesco Franco 09:23, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Philosophy is as much about meta-level questions (ala the encyclopedic consensus) as it is about the best practice of every field (ala Blackburn). The common denominator to both traits is reason, of course, which surely applies to any number of practical efforts. So examples of the utility of philosophy should not be surprising.

A list of putative causes of empirical phenomena identified by philosophers would be too lengthy to list; some good, some bad. Chomskyian nativism comes to mind. Lockean empiricism (sp. the relationship b/w primary and secondary senses) is a causal account. Kantian "pure categories" are being taken seriously in contemporary literature on cognitive science: see for example, Croft and Cruse's gloss in Cognitive Linguistics, re: schematics in semantics. The negative contributions, i.e., as skeptics, has not simply floated at the level of the abstract. Berkeley's examination of optical phenomena (in his critique of "geometric" accounts) successfully pointed out some significant errors in the accounts of the time; these accounts relied upon the ancient principle, which simply failed to make any sense of concave mirrors. (Berkeley's reductio is actually pretty well-regarded, last I heard.) The Molyneux Man thought-experiment is commonly associated with Locke; what's glossed over is that it was conceived by Locke's friend, a doctor. (And of course, Locke himself was a doctor as well.) Lucretius was an atomist millenia before we could have any solid evidence to hold the belief. If Freud was anything more than just a demented kook, he was a philosopher. That's keeping at bay the contributions to, say, mathematics and logic; Leibniz and Descartes come to mind, and others which I'm sure don't need mention.

There's a word to describe those philosophers who constrain their efforts to idle skepticism and meta-level questions: boring. But not all of them are that way. And I'm just wary of those who claim to be scientists and also claim they are not engaging in interpretations. They are constrained interpretations, sure, but it is often easy to make prudent scientific judgment to be something more (or less) than that. The uses of analytic philosophy in the scientific enterprise seem fairly plain.

Of course I doubt I can help much with the present dilemmas you have, I can just throw in a few mildly-informed speculations in the hopes that it may help as a starting point for your future researches. I should mention (as you likely know) that the Occipital lobe is directly above the cerebellum. The former is basically in charge of visual activity, and the latter deals in the sense of balance. If something is happening, it would seem reasonable to suppose that it is in that region. Can you compare your dizziness/vomiting to the feeling of drunkenness? From what I understand, the dehydration caused by alcohol intake is what causes the problems in most hangovers. I'm just thinking about your comments re: the heat and humidity. If the cause is dehydration, then perhaps you might think of staying indoors / cool, try not to get dehydrated. (Do you drink a lot of water? I wonder whether that would help or hurt.) But for all I know, since you mentioned humidity, you may be overhydrated. Oh well, as least those are variables to be considered.

(Also I should say that I'm pleased that my previous deductions were supported by Dr. Hubbard above re: the limits of the FMRI!) Sorry about the choice of words, re: "disoriented".

BTW, if you run into the CEO of Luxottica, tell him to give me a raise { Ben S. Nelson } 23:05, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I know: Berkeley, atomism, Kant and the usual stuff. Chomsky's theorized were all thoroughly mathematically formalized and then subjected to empirical testing and abductive reasoning. Thus us why he is considered a linguist and not a philosopher. At any rate, it is undeniable that a very few arm-chair philosophical specualtions have turned out, almost by accident, to have been useful in the advancement of genuine knowledge. They have almost always had to be revised and refined radically (e.g. atomic theory), and then subjected to empirical investigation before becoming anything close to an accurate causal explanation of wordly phenomena. It is almost impossible that continuous speculation by people with nothing else to do would not accidently hit upon an appromixately correct

explanation of a causal phenomenea once every two hundred years or so!! But how much do the occasional, extraordinary exceptions represent out of the immeasurably immense amount of philosophical theorizing that has gone on, and continues to go on, in the world? Maybe 0.000000000001% or thereabouts? Do you, for example, think the free will problem(s) will ever be resolved by arm-chair thinking? Is it even possible, in priniciple, for human baings to know the answer to such questions? How about the mind-body problem? The existence or non.exitence and the nature of qualia? Which (philosophy) books or articles should I read to get some idea about the TRUTH on these matters? I have spent a great deal of time recently reading through the 50 or articles that are posted on OPP every other day or so? What I find is an enormous amount of very well-written, well-argued, well-thought-out essays which either a) have absolutely no relevance, and will never have any relevence, to any serious problem on earth: actualism vs. possibilism? four-dimensionalism vs. temporal stages? what is the nature of a proposition? In light of the pessimistic meta-induction with respect to science, meta-philosophical skepticism or pessimism seems to to almost irresistible.

Straightforard dizziness (such as that in motion-sickness, drunkenness, Meniere's diease and so on) has a well-known and well-defined cause, at any rate. It happens when there is a lack of synchronization and coordindation in the signals sent to central processing areas of the brain via various pathways (don't remember the specific details right now) from the eyes and the vestibular apparatus in the inner ear. What happens in case of Meniere's specifically, is that a drop of fluid spontaneously develops in the that part if the inner ear which controls balance and throws everything our of whack. There's is no known cause for this periodic "spontaneous" development of fluid. There aren't some obvious hyopothesis: bacteria, virii, etc.. but nothing has been confirmed experimentally. As I've pointed out before though, dizziness is not even close to my main problems. --Francesco Franco 10:06, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I didn't set out to seek to redeem philosophy in its entirety. Many philosophical projects seem to me utterly irrelevant, given my biography and the bundle of interpretations that have accrued in my head. I just meant to answer your challenge: "When has any philosophy/philosopher ever identified the cause of anything, much less an empirical phenomenon?"


Yes, redeeming philosophy in its entirety certainly sounds like an interesting and valuable project, now that you mention it though. You might seriously consider giving it a try, if you are up to the task and you enjoy that sort of thing. Personally, I feel too....emmm unenthused and uninspired to even write a short paper on something that interests me or post some comments on a blog or something. These days, I mostly read newspapers and magazines on-line or sit around and listen to (pirated) copies of classic rock, jazz-fusion, classic jazz or whatever music seems to call me back to earlier and better times in my life. Then I get profoundly depressed and nostalgic. It is in that state that I end up writing comments like "What the heck is the point (to me) of this, that and the other enterprise/activity/state of affairs/etc.." But you are surely correct that philosophers have proposed innumerable causal explanations and solutions to problems (that's ALL they do, in fact, beside asking the question in the first place) and the greatest of them have occasionaly hit on, opr inspired the search for, an approximately correct or useful or truthful or warrantedly assertible answer (or whichever formulation you prefer). Not to carry on on this meta-topic, but my sense is that too much of philosophy has become playing the arranging and rearranging of the same puzzle pieces or complex Lego blocks over and over ad infinitum. Of course, this is also true of much of science, and especially mathematics, these days. "Nice construction there, kid. Now let's completely dismantle it and try this other construction. Isn't that KEEWL??" "Wow, look at the one I built up, mommy. It's fifty stories high and doesn't fall." "Well, it's made of cards and if I sneeze right about NOW!!" And these are supposed to be the foundations upon which to build something? Laying foundations in quick-sand can be an extraodrinary great deal of fun for many people, including myself of course, but not when I'm in these particular states of mind. I'm in the destructive mode.
I'm not sure philosophy in its entirety is worth saving, to be honest. This is the tenor of the times, I think; and it follows loosely on the rise of empiricism and of more sophisticated divisions of academic labor. The two, taken together, are fatal to philosophy as an independent field. Rationalists sought to show the power of the disciplined mind (and the necessity of such states in the formulation of knowledge), which is a project that empiricism weakened to a large extent (though by no means entirely). Philosophers are also tired of being bound by subject matter -- curiosity is the driving force, both laterally (as in across subjects) and at the nth level (as in the treatment of meta-topics). Of the two, the latter is more worthy of skepticism, since empiricism still seems to me quite indisputable. Why should the philosopher be afraid of applying their ideas into other fields, and tracing out their ramifications? It's inevitable, for one thing. For another, one (as a philosopher) eventually becomes embarrassed by the notion that they've really failed to do anything with their studies. (I haven't listened to acid jazz in a while. Thanks for reminding me.)
I think you've characterized part of appeal of philosophy in your Lego analogy. (Jostein Gaarder used the same analogy in the abysmal novel "Sophie's World" -- though that was one of the good parts of the book.) But what's so bad about system-building? Systems are like maps, which can provide us with surprising (and delightful) ways to discover new territories -- or prove that some territories are just utopian fantasy. It's not just that these are mere constructions, they are also complex commitments, where the resolve and energy of the builder is put to the test. Perhaps SimCity is a better analogy. { Ben S. Nelson }

I don't really see any free will problem. Much of the debates continue due to a lack of common discussion over the meaning of the terms used -- the conditions under which free will would exist. It seems to me that the following compatibilist account of free will is acceptable: "we have free will if our volitions are governed by our conscious mind in some non-trivial way". I.e., if our conscious mind is able to veto action on inappropriate desires. The question then becomes, does a thought by itself have any force upon our behaviors (ala Kant), or does it require its own desires in order to be significant (ala Hume)? And that's an empirical question. Of course a person can challenge the original compatibilist formulation, and perhaps even do so convincingly. But at the present moment I think the challenges are just idle spinning of wheels.

Free will is a property of the transcendant, universal mind which self-identifies itself when it reflects on the workings of the all-encompassing nounemon which surrounds and envelops the other-than-thingness of the mind its self-realizing becomingness. (-; Wait a minute now: "The conscious mind which governs material desires..." You're not espousing some sort of property dualism here, eh?? I don0t know what a volition could be such that it is not an event (cause or effect) in either the external or internal causal chain of physics. No, I am strongly convinced that free will truly is an illusion that our brain generates a posteriori. But we will never give it up and for obvious reasons. Calling a mental event a "volition" seems like the sort of semantic chicanery that you were earlier (sort of) criticizing. What's this entity that steps in and WILLs this desire NOT to go through and where is it located?
Universal mind? Balls! No evidence.
That was intended as a post-modernist satire. Apparently not very good. Never mind.--Francesco Franco 09:39, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
I know, I just wanted to say "Balls!" in philosophical conversation. { Ben S. Nelson }
I'm not espousing any dualism except a descriptive dualism. Much like Searle, I just find it convenient to describe some interconnected activity (done by a complex materialistic system) in subjective terms of "consciousness", "volition", etc. Searle (my guiding voice in all things mental) thinks that this is a genuinely ontological distinction. He views this distinction as a non-reductive materialism (what he calls biological naturalism), which is allowed to us because we can appeal to different levels of description in ontology. In other words, there is a distinction between subject and object, simply because it so happens that description is an essential part of ontology.
I believe most of this, with three points of interest: a) we can't explain things in terms of the mere material common denominators (i.e., atoms), we have to include their behaviors in our vocabulary. At the end of the day, there is only one "dualism", and it is between thing and behavior, which corresponds to the distinction between space and space-time (respectively). b) The emergent phenomena have as much right to the title of "existent" as their components (nominal non-reductionism). c) I think that there is intuitive force behind the notion that mental states are material activities. Everything I think is active; I am never inert. That's, I guess, a kind of de re reductionism. { Ben S. Nelson }
I think Searle is profoundly confused. If these emergent "phenomena" are ontologically irreducible entities, then we have subtstance dualism. If they are properties, then we have property dualism. And, then, what about the components of the componenents, and the components of the compenents of the components, and so on. Property pluralism. He is a mental Meinongian who attributes no causal powers to the upper level properties!! He is an epiphenomal mental Meinongian. This is madness. He bizzarely and explicitly rejects weak (epistemological) emergence, which is all that is really needed to sustain non-reductive materialism from such concerns and is much more parsimonious, The only dualism is dualism of explanatory levels, law-like generalizations (a-nom-alous monism) and predicates.
I don't know about that. He does view mental events as a kind of physical event, which makes the theory neither substance nor property dualism. And he does seem to attribute causal powers to the upper level properties, so not epiphenomenal (see the wiki on biological naturalism). { Ben S. Nelson } 16:05, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes, but he never quite specificially states the relationship between these "mental" events and the physical events that supposedly instantiate them: if the mental events ARE ultimately physical events that take place in the physical brain (as all true physicalists must maintain, by definition(, then are the events type-identical or is there some form of token-identical superveniecne going on. The closest Searle seems to me to come is speficying what he means by emnergence and so on is to discuss various faulty analogies between consciousness and "states" of matter like solidity, roundness. But "states" are transient and mutable conditions of types of matter. Water can be solid liquid, or gaseous. There is nothing equivalent for consciouness. There either is consciousness or there is not. On other words, if consciosness is to the brain as solidity is to, eg, frozen water, what is the state of the brain that corresponds to the state of liquid watar and gaseous water?
If he does attribute causal powers to the upper-level properties, then of course he runs into the great problem for all non-reductive theories: Kim's problem of causal overdetermination. Anyway, Searle accepts the possibility of unconscious zombies which are functionally (i.e causally, behaviorally, teleoligically) identical to conscious beings. But since neurobiological structures have no more necessary conceptual tie with consciousness than silicon does, it mus be at least possible that there can be a biologically identical unconscious entity. Where's is there space in this account for the causal role for phenomenal consciousness?? --Francesco Franco 09:16, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
  • For Searle, the causal relationship appears to be one of token-identity. It is established by the causal relationships that some mental event and some physical event have in common. (That is, for any Mental event (x), and any Physical event (y), if the Mental(x) has Cause(z) AND the Physical(y) have Causes(z), then the mental event and the physical event are causally identical, and one can be causally reduced to the other; the one causally supervenes on the other.)
Causally reducible but not ontologically reducible. That's right!! I remember now. Searle wants to have his cake and eat it too: this is supposed to avoid ontological dualism (it doesn't!!) while also avoiding identity theories (it doesn't, as the point about token-IDENTITY of causal properties shows wonderfully). A bizarre theory. Anyway, as others have pointed out: Searlian first-person irreducible consciouness and intentionality is extremely implausable, if not conceptually impossible, as a candidate for scientific reduction. Anyway, how the devil can one reduce something which is ihenerently irreducible?? This is deeply incoherent.In some place, he suggests that the irreducibility is only temporary and our future knowledge will, in fact, explain everything there is to explain about consciousness. Extremely implausible type of faith in scientific reduction and an admission that consciousness is NOT really irreducible, after all, in the sense intended by Nagel, Jackson and other subjective non-reductionists.
I suppose it could be cast as ontological dualism of a kind, but only misleadingly -- since it can just as readily be cast as an ontological monism. When it comes to his system, the prefix "ontological" is too ambiguous for our purposes to use either "dualism" or "monism" as an accompanying term. Any worries we may have about "inherent reduction" would have to specify what they're talking about: if it is causal identity, then there's clearly no problem; if it's constitutive, then it's irrelevant to the kinds of arguments that the counter-theorist would like to make.
But even if it were a dualism, for the sake of argument (a "constitutive dualism"), the question is: does it matter? It seems to me that it is so far removed from substance and property dualisms that all the argumentative venom we might have against those positions is severely curbed when treating of his position. And it doesn't seem inconsistent to me; you'll have to show why you think so in more detail. At root, constitutive dualism appears to be insisting that we recognize the nature of cause and effect as what they are, according to a (putatively) plausible metaphysics: effects are different levels of description, and their relationship is a causal one. That the two levels of description seem inconsistent on first blush is natural, since the world only reveals itself to us partially. We don't know everything at once, and part of us wants to make something big out of the severe differences between the appearance of one level of description and another. And I suppose he would argue that our ontology misses out on something if we ignore more epistemic-sounding facts like that. (I don't know if I believe in that, mind you -- and I'm not even sure that I care one way or the other -- but still, it seems perfectly consistent.)
Moreover, if one's view of the aims of science is to explain the connections between one level of description and another, then the theory seems to satisfy -- if not exemplify -- the need. { Ben S. Nelson } 16:17, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Look, it's very simple really. 2 things NOTEQ 1 thing. 3 things NOTEQ 1 thing, etc.. They are not two levels of description for Searle, they are two different BEINGS or MODES OF BEING. He can have his first-personal and third-personal BEING dualism, but he cannot then invoke token-identity and say they are really the SAME thing without violating the Indiscernibility of identicals. Identical things have the same properties. First-personal properties make the token-identity of mental state M with third-personal neurobiological state P impossible, unless you redefine identity as bizarre mereological sums equal to their parts, or some such, etc.. But, then, we will end eventually with the Parmidean doctrine that everything=1, 5=72, and true= false. This is a "scientific", naturalistic view? Well, at this point, I find all the standard positions on this question "incoherent" and faulty. So it's not a particular thing with Searle. I don't see why he doesn't acknowledge property dualism anyway? --Francesco Franco 10:41, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
  • We do not seem to agree. I'm not sure that anything I've read of Searle would justify the interpretation of him that mental states and brain-process-states are "different beings". He's unequivocal about the central role that different levels of description play in his argument; so he's not susceptible to the critique given here wrt the indiscernibility of identicals. See especially the passage in "Mind: A Brief Introduction", p. 121-122, which I think sheds light directly on the present topic.
I suppose a biological naturalist might say these are different "modes of being", in some very loose sense already discussed. But not to the extent that it would push Searle into property dualism. He rejects prop-dualism for the usual reasons: to call a thing a mental property, is to postulate that it is some non-material thing. (This is evidently using the word "property" in a fairly strict sense.)
For the sake of fully characterizing his view, I should amend one of my earlier comments. It is not just that his theory makes sense of different levels of description, and is able to connect them (it does). It does more. In defending against eliminativists, he insists that so far as "consciousness is concerned appearance is the reality": we can't eliminate it, because we lose something about our ontology by dumping it. (This is a move that I think a bit bizarre. I would be quite happy to defend the claim that the sun rises over Mt. Tamalpais, for instance.){ Ben S. Nelson } 02:06, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
Alright, I don't want to carry this too far into metaphyics and obsess on the ontological queston, which is where my my thoughts tend to go whenever I think of Searle's, shall we say unique, doctrine of ontological irreducibility and different "modes of existence" for different levels of explanation. You are a pretty good and knowledgable defender of the position. I still don't buy any of it, of course. But the discussion and consequent speculations has inspired me to want to read some of Searle's more recent writings on this stuff. There is always too damned much to read, learn and study and too little time. Meantime, I will work on my own elaboration of the view true consciousness and intetionalty reside in the bowels and the brain is just propertyless gunk which has been falsely attributed great powers of thought and elaboration by a cabal of ruthless neuroscientists like Ed Hubbard. --Francesco Franco 09:06, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. Conversations like these always inspire me to crack open the books again... { Ben S. Nelson } 14:59, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
If I understand correctly, he rejects emergence because it misleadingly implies that the physical process gives rise to the mental process, which really is just a dualistic account. But his entire point is that the two processes are one in the same, albeit at different levels of description
He does not reject emergence, he is a strong ontological emergentist who even postulates mysterious "causal powers" of biological tissue that distinguish it from, say, silicon-based life forms.
(i.e., they are not constitutively identical, even if they are causally identical).
This is not to say that the view is entirely immune to criticism. Implicit in all of this is the hope that ontology, as a field, ought to be concerned with the ways we want to use our concepts. If we followed something like a logical positivist program, and applied more discipline to our ontological language, then it would upset the integrity of biological naturalism.
  • I'm not sure how useful the comments about water vs. consciousness are. Consciousness has many different states, just as water does. There is the conscious state of dreaming, the unconscious state in between dreaming and wakefulness, the state of wakefulness, and all gradations in between. Anyway I doubt Searle could tell you much about the processes that make consciousness. It isn't understood well enough. He points out, I think rightly, that the admission of the logical possibility of superficial zombies does not say anything interesting about the way things really are, causally. It just shows that physical causes and consciousness are different, constitutively. A gasless car is logically possible, but that doesn't mean that gas does not causally contribute anything to the movement of our cars. The question is not, "Where's the space in his account for this fantastic what-if story?", but rather, "Where's the relevance of this what-if story on this (or any) account?" { Ben S. Nelson } 18:13, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
The point is that he compares consciousness to properties such as solidity, which can be reduced both causally and ontologically, into talk of atoms and motion. Or worse yet to digestion and other biological properties, all of which have no independent "first-person ontological" status. Anyway, it is an interesting view, but it seems, to me, to be hopelessly unconvincing. --Francesco Franco 11:12, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Anyway, even if the topics you mention are seemingly useless, that doesn't make them irrelevant. Relevance depends on the intellectual projects that one has, for whatever reason, invested their mental energy into. Usually because the solutions provide some order, meaning, and stability to one's life. It's not that philosophy necessarily solves problems, it's just that it's necessary for the solving of (most) problems. And in terms of solutions, there are plenty, and provided by philosophers; there just may not be a consensus on what solution is correct. But consensus is a crutch anyway.

Yes, Relevance is relational. I should have been more precise: seeming irrelevant and/or usesless to me lately.
It seemed like that to me, too, after the Ludvikus affair. The trick is to find a way to shut your brain down every so often. I.E., work a menial job that involves zero thought. { Ben S. Nelson } 22:26, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Seriously, though, does drinking water help in any way? { Ben S. Nelson } 14:35, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

No, I think I am allergic to water. That is, unless it is made up of XYZ. --Francesco Franco 16:21, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Putnam rejects semantic externalism now, evidently (according to Lakoff). Looks like your access to Aqua-XYZ is shut down for the time being. { Ben S. Nelson } 22:26, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
Well, Hilary Putnam is not exactly well-known for changing his positions, is he?? On the other hand, Jerry Fodor now accepts a form of semantic externalism. So there must still be some "Twater" available somehwhere. --Francesco Franco 09:39, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Fodor shmodor. { Ben S. Nelson } 16:05, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

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[edit] Impetus

I'm translating the article "Conatus" for swedish Wikipedia and saw that you wrote the paragraph about Jean Buridan under "Medieval views" in the article. I'm wondering if you know whether the word "impetus", which is used there, should be translated in the same manner as the rest of the text or if it's a technical term that shouldn't be translated. BjörnEF 16:15, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

The term impetus denotes a very specific, technical concept that was first developed Buridan to contrast with all prior ideas concerning the nature of the property that "causes" or generates motion. It was later expanded into an (unsuccesfull) full "theory of impetus" by other philosophers. As part of a specific theory that failed, the term plays a role like that of ether, phlogiston, and so on; terms which, though they have no reference and are no longer used, are important to maintain distinct and clear for an understanding of the historical development of science and philosophy. I would strongly advise against translating it. Basically, you will almost certainly not find anything (including conatus) which corresponds to closely enough in non-Latin languages to capture the technical sense. --Francesco Franco 12:32, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the explanation. BjörnEF 20:14, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
Welcome.--Francesco Franco 07:06, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject History of Science newsletter : Issue III - September 2007

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[edit] Talk:Megan Meier suicide controversy

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[edit] John von Neumann

Lacatosias, I have placed on the talk page of the John von Neumann article some concerns about the accuracy of the material on quantum mechanics apparently added by you in December 2005. If the material was not added by you, please accept my apologies. Xxanthippe (talk) 23:25, 9 January 2008 (UTC).

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[edit] Free will FAR

Hi Lacotosias. I note that you are by far the main contributor to free will, so...

Free will has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.

I don't think it would be too much work to get it back to FA standard, if indeed others agree it has fallen below it. It's just the lead (needs expansion - not too hard) and the balance for the theology/religion part. Richard001 (talk) 07:34, 25 April 2008 (UTC)


Ha! I find this idea extremely enticing indeed: I will work my ass off on the most "brilliantly", "dazzlingly" concise, comprehensive and authoritative intro section that I can possible write, attempt to straighten out all the other deficencies of this article, etc.., and then I will be hammered for my, admittedly, somewhat contorted and pompous prose style by some professional editors like TonyB and wind up taking it personally and feel even more depressed than I already am. All of this, without financial reward, publication or any other incentives?? Madness!! --Francesco Franco (talk) 12:59, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject History of Science newsletter : Issue IV - May 2008

A new May 2008 issue of the WikiProject History of Science newsletter is hot off the virtual presses. Please feel free to make corrections or add news about any project-related content you've been working on. You're receiving this because you are a participant in the History of Science WikiProject. You may read the newsletter or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Yours in discourse--ragesoss (talk) 23:19, 2 May 2008 (UTC)