tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6672880129970799148.post2531014929509383618..comments2023-08-22T07:01:08.590-07:00Comments on Agent Intellect: Archaeology of the EAANJim S.http://www.blogger.com/profile/15538540873375357030noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6672880129970799148.post-34607661846202349712011-11-25T13:08:23.897-08:002011-11-25T13:08:23.897-08:00To pile on, while most of the 6 or 7 points I rais...To pile on, while most of the 6 or 7 points I raised above have to do purely with showing he doesn't "engage with the theory" in empirical terms (I should also have pointed out he ignores the functional role of public symbol systems in information transmission and error correction), there are at least a few broadly philosophical errors which invalidate the whole enterprise.<br /><br />If it is false that Plantinga's beliefs are generally reliable, then the probability that EAAN is cogent argument is low or inscrutable, and the error would be almost in-principle undetectable; yet he thinks he can simply haul himself up to Truth by his bootstraps.<br /><br />I do not claim that naturalism (or its negation) is coherent as a broad metaphysical claim but if supernaturalism means anything it means that the nomic properties of our experience - <b>properties which DEFINE and CONSTITUTE the possibility of "reliable knowledge"</b> - can be suspended at any time. In Biblical cosmology, the world is overflowing with malicious spirits with the means, motive, and opportunity to deceive us at any time. But even Yahweh, whose "ways are not our ways", by acting miraculously makes horsefeathers of the idea that our universe is knowable even given a perfectly accurate belief-generating machine. Not even the belief that water is wet can be counted on when at any time, for reasons infinitely unknowable and unpredictable, Yahweh can make it temporarily not wet so his son can make some sort of pun on the name "Peter".<br /><br />EAAN is a house on fire if that house were a train wreck on a sinking ship. It's not salvageable.Staircaseghosthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02647353730607650698noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6672880129970799148.post-70440186180284297472011-11-24T13:41:31.393-08:002011-11-24T13:41:31.393-08:00Jim, what do you think of the criticism of the EAA...Jim, what do you think of the criticism of the EAAN? Did one give you pause?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6672880129970799148.post-17196592201252093702011-11-19T15:22:15.805-08:002011-11-19T15:22:15.805-08:00@Micheal it is a mistake to think that Plantinga &...@Micheal it is a mistake to think that Plantinga "engages with the theory". He can't be bothered to actually look at how actual brains actually work, nor to understand how natural selection works, and as a consequence his armchair speculations about what kinds of minds evolution might plausibly produce are literally worse than useless. In some formulations, he actually talks as though each individual belief has its own individual gene!<br /><br />He claims that it is <i>at least as likely</i> that someone who beat Gary Kasparov at chess thought they were baking a pecan pie as it is that they were thinking about how to beat someone in chess. He projects his creationism onto the scientific theories he doesn't understand, so he thinks evolution is the kind of process in which functional, complex organs are held to fortuitously poof into existence.<br /><br />He doesn't (as far as I've seen) ever define "reliable" in a precise enough way so readers can see that he question-beggingly relies on a broken correspondence theory of truth.<br /><br />He doesn't explain the leap from "a God would want us to come to know him" to "a God would give us domain-general induction organs which would give us accurate tiger footrace beliefs". He can't be bothered to explain by what mechanism these God-inspired accurate beliefs are enforced, so he never addresses the fact that evolution also explains not only why our faculties are generally reliable, but why we see the <i>specific pattern</i> of cognitive biases etc. that we would expect from the process of natural selection which he doesn't understand.<br /><br />I would like to see more apologists come right out and say "I still think our side has the better arguments, but this one's just a dog that needs to be taken behind the shed and put to rest".Staircaseghosthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02647353730607650698noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6672880129970799148.post-29389679836682751402011-11-18T07:00:29.620-08:002011-11-18T07:00:29.620-08:00Hi Michael. Plantinga's argument, if it's ...Hi Michael. Plantinga's argument, if it's successful (a big if) does not merely show that it is <i>possible</i> that our cognitive faculties be unreliable on a given occasion, but that it is <i>probable</i> that they are unreliable. So it's not just that our faculties are imperfect, it's that we have a positive reason not to trust them.<br /><br />I should probably just e-mail you to give you a clearer picture of Plantinga's argument. It's very similar to Karl Popper's argument against determinism, J. R. Lucas's Gödelian argument against physical determinism, Norman Malcolm's argument against mechanism, and others.<br /><br />One thing I'll point out here that Plantinga is not challenging evolution (nor am I). What he's challenging is naturalism. One could say he's challenging evolution <i>naturalistically conceived</i>, but that does not call any biological or paleontological claim into question. The argument alleges that evolution is not sufficient to account for creatures which have mostly true beliefs, that is evolution is not the whole story. It's an interpretation of evolution he's challenging, not evolution itself.Jim S.https://www.blogger.com/profile/15538540873375357030noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6672880129970799148.post-84786723340784670172011-11-16T09:00:24.178-08:002011-11-16T09:00:24.178-08:00Hi Jim, thanks for posting. I'd heard of Plan...Hi Jim, thanks for posting. I'd heard of Plantinga before and still haven't read his arguments directly so my comment here is really a response to your analysis. This is interesting to me, because evolution opponents usually don't engage with the theory as much as Plantinga seems to be, and in fact evolutionist-naturalists don't think about this point enough; i.e., that if we're descendants of animals that not long ago were running around the African steps hooting incoherently at each other, and they weren't perfect logic-proof evaluators or communicators, why do we think we are? The coyotes behind my house seem to be able to understand truth and even communicate it to some degree but both abilities are limited and distorted in them, so even if we're better than them at it or our skills apply more broadly, we're still not anywhere near perfect at it. (Weak example, difficulty of Bayesian vs frequentist reasoning for untrained minds; strong example, if something like cognitive closure obtains.)<br /><br />But there are two clear counterarguments to Plantinga's assertion that either evolution or naturalism can be true: 1) a strong epistemological one, and 2) a more sedate one just because the limitations he points out are not absolute.<br /><br />First, as stated, no, we shouldn't expect evolution to have produced perfect proof-evaluating machines. But whether we can know something is true, and whether that thing IS true, are of course two different things. That is, even if, as Plantinga claims, evolution would produce an agent helpless to evaluate truth claims, that means that we couldn't tell if evolution produced us, but it doesn't mean that evolution definitely did NOT produce us.<br /><br />Second, saying evolution will produce epistemologically imperfect agents is much different from saying that ALL attempts to evaluate truth claims by agents so produced are necessarily false. We don't know everything, and we have false beliefs sometimes, but we get by. Unless we're all solipsists, we seem to sometimes in a practical way be able to get to and evaluate and communicate truth.<br /><br />By the way, based on how the collection of topics you post are an odd conjunction of all the things I also enjoy reading and discussing, I continue to believe we were separated at birth! Regards, MikeMichael Catonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01017910055699348111noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6672880129970799148.post-28180569751573330922011-11-14T19:47:44.884-08:002011-11-14T19:47:44.884-08:00Thanks for posting this. I listened to a recordin...Thanks for posting this. I listened to a recording of a lecture given by Plantinga on the EAAN and have been meaning to read on it.Ronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12904551242524278438noreply@blogger.com