Antilogisms are a form of argument that take a syllogism and negate the conclusion. So whereas a syllogism might say:
1. All men are mortal.
2. Socrates is a man.
3. Therefore, Socrates is mortal.
Its corresponding antilogism would be:
4. All men are mortal.
5. Socrates is a man.
6. Socrates is not mortal.
The interesting thing about this is that you can now accept any two premises, but not all three. You can accept that Socrates is a man and is not mortal if you deny that all men or mortal. Or you can accept that all men are mortal and Socrates is not mortal if you deny that Socrates is a man. So any two premises in a genuine antilogism can be made into a valid syllogism by negating the remaining premise.
There are a lot of interesting antilogisms and pseudo-antilogisms in philosophy. One of the most famous goes back to the ancient Greeks, and was re-emphasized by David Hume.
7. God is omnipotent (all powerful).
8. God is omnibenevolent (perfectly good and loving).
9. Evil exists.
This really captures the intuitive sense behind the problem of evil, which asks how a perfectly good and omnipotent God could allow evil to take place. Unfortunately, premise 9 is not the negation of the valid conclusion of a syllogism:
10. God is omnipotent.
11. God is omnibenevolent.
12. Therefore, there is at least one omnipotent, omnibenevolent being.
I think what the antilogism is trying to say is something like this:
13. God is omnipotent.
14. God is omnibenevolent.
15. An omnipotent and omnibenevolent being would not allow evil to take place.
16. Evil does take place.
17. Therefore, God is either not omnipotent, not omnibenevolent, or neither -- perhaps by not existing.
(You could also throw omniscience in there to emphasize that God must be aware of the evil that takes place.) The problem here is defending premise 15. The history of philosophy (and theology) is filled with attempts to explain how God could allow evil to take place, called theodicies, which is not to say that any of them are successful. But if we negate 15 we get:
18. An omnipotent and omnibenevolent being could allow evil to take place.
Premises 7, 8, 9, and 18 are a consistent set. So 7, 8, and 9 is not a true antilogism. Naturally, we all want a reason to accept premise 18 -- a common claim is that God only allows evil when he is able to bring about a counterbalancing good from it -- but it's not necessary in the structure of the argument. As long as 18 is logically possible then premises 7, 8, and 9 do not form an antilogism.
To see an antilogism in action, let's apply it to this scene from "Gandhi."
This presents us with the following antilogism:
19. Gandhi is a "colored attorney."
20. Gandhi is in South Africa.
21. "There are no colored attorneys in South Africa."
Granted, premise 20 is never actually stated, but I think we can infer it with confidence. Once again, we can accept any two premises but not all three. So Gandhi reverses premise 21 to form a genuine syllogism:
22. Gandhi is a "colored attorney."
23. Gandhi is in South Africa.
24. "There is at least one colored attorney in South Africa."
And the rest of the scene shows how dangerous logic can be.
Sunday, July 26, 2020
Thursday, July 23, 2020
The Chinese Room
The Chinese Room is a philosophical argument about the nature of mind that takes the form of a thought experiment. Imagine you're in a room with two slots. Tiles are slid in one with Chinese markings on them. You have a guidebook that tells you that if the tiles have such-and-such figures on them in such-and-such order, you are to take another tile that has other markings on it and slide it through the other slot. You eventually get very good at it, maybe you even memorize the guidebook. The question is: does your competence in operating the Chinese room mean that you understand Chinese? If you answer no, ask yourself what else it means to understand a language.
The answer most people would give is meaning. You know what symbols you should put through the output slot based on what the symbols that are put through the input slot are. But that doesn't correspond to knowing what the symbols actually mean.
John Searle, who first proposed the Chinese Room Argument, said it's the difference between semantics and syntax. Knowing what symbols should be made in response to other symbols is an issue of syntax, but semantics involves meaning, and that is left out of the equation.
Here's a great Kids in the Hall skit that accidentally makes this point.
Part of the reason this is absurd is that we could only take what he's saying as actual claims if he is actually asserting them. If he's just repeating sounds that, for him, have no meaning, we have no basis for accepting the meaning that the words have -- or the meaning they would have if spoken by someone who did understand them.
If the Chinese Room Argument is sound, there are some interesting consequences. One is that, if we believe that we do in fact understand meaning, that we are able to operate on a semantic level not just on a syntactic level, then our minds cannot be completely explained in mechanistic terms. Mechanism would only explain things on the syntactic level, and if we operate on a semantic level, then our minds transcend mere cause-and-effect mechanical processes.
Two, attempts to recreate minds on a mechanistic basis, i.e. artificial intelligence, will only ever operate on a syntactic level. It could be set up to respond in exactly the same way a mind operating on a semantic level does but it would be a sham. It would be an attempt to trigger our intuition that there is a mind behind the symbols that intends to communicate meaning (remember the movie Screamers?), but insofar as they are only functioning on a syntactic level, they are in the same situation as the non-Chinese speaker in the Chinese room.
Obviously, there's a lot more to be said about this: it's a live issue in philosophy with a lot of ink being spilled on both sides. It may be possible to generate an artificial intelligence that does operate on a semantic level. But how could we tell? It's output would be identical to one that only operates on a syntactic level. But then how do we know that other people -- friends, family, strangers -- are operating on a semantic level? This is the problem of other minds, which has also caused a lot of ink to be spilled.
The answer most people would give is meaning. You know what symbols you should put through the output slot based on what the symbols that are put through the input slot are. But that doesn't correspond to knowing what the symbols actually mean.
John Searle, who first proposed the Chinese Room Argument, said it's the difference between semantics and syntax. Knowing what symbols should be made in response to other symbols is an issue of syntax, but semantics involves meaning, and that is left out of the equation.
Here's a great Kids in the Hall skit that accidentally makes this point.
Part of the reason this is absurd is that we could only take what he's saying as actual claims if he is actually asserting them. If he's just repeating sounds that, for him, have no meaning, we have no basis for accepting the meaning that the words have -- or the meaning they would have if spoken by someone who did understand them.
If the Chinese Room Argument is sound, there are some interesting consequences. One is that, if we believe that we do in fact understand meaning, that we are able to operate on a semantic level not just on a syntactic level, then our minds cannot be completely explained in mechanistic terms. Mechanism would only explain things on the syntactic level, and if we operate on a semantic level, then our minds transcend mere cause-and-effect mechanical processes.
Two, attempts to recreate minds on a mechanistic basis, i.e. artificial intelligence, will only ever operate on a syntactic level. It could be set up to respond in exactly the same way a mind operating on a semantic level does but it would be a sham. It would be an attempt to trigger our intuition that there is a mind behind the symbols that intends to communicate meaning (remember the movie Screamers?), but insofar as they are only functioning on a syntactic level, they are in the same situation as the non-Chinese speaker in the Chinese room.
Obviously, there's a lot more to be said about this: it's a live issue in philosophy with a lot of ink being spilled on both sides. It may be possible to generate an artificial intelligence that does operate on a semantic level. But how could we tell? It's output would be identical to one that only operates on a syntactic level. But then how do we know that other people -- friends, family, strangers -- are operating on a semantic level? This is the problem of other minds, which has also caused a lot of ink to be spilled.
Monday, July 20, 2020
Zeno's Dichotomy
Zeno was a pre-Socratic philosopher and a disciple of Parmenides. They both argued that the real world isn't at all like we experience it, and Zeno argued this by presenting a series of paradoxes alleging to show that the concept of (for example) plurality led to absurdities and so there must only be one thing that exists. Many of his arguments tried to show that motion was impossible, such as the Paradox of the Arrow and Achilles and the Tortoise. But my favorite one along these lines is his Dichotomy. Take someone who runs really fast like Atalanta, a figure from Greek mythology who was so fast she ended up as a hood ornament for the Studebaker.
So Atalanta decides to run forward, say 16 meters. But obviously, before she can run 16 meters, she has to run half that distance, 8 meters. But before she runs 8 meters, she has to run half of that, 4 meters. But before that she has to run 2 meters, 1 meter, 1/2 meter, etc. The upshot is that she can never run any distance. Even if we start by saying she tries to move a Planck length forward (about 10-35 meters), she first has to move half that distance, and half that, etc. So motion is impossible and since it seems that we and everything else moves, the world is an illusion. Roughly, the argument is:
1) Any finite distance can be divided infinitely.
2) An infinite cannot be traversed.
3) Therefore, no finite distance can be traversed.
Then along came Aristotle. He pointed out that we can use "infinite" in two different ways, as a potential amount or an actual amount. A potential infinite is an amount increasing towards infinity as a limit but never actually reaching it. That's what we symbolize with the sideways eight, ∞. At any given point, a potential infinite is a finite amount. An actual infinite, on the other hand, is not increasing towards infinity, it's achieved it. In contemporary set theory this is symbolized by aleph-null: ℵ0. And an actual infinite amount cannot be traversed.
Now, any finite distance can be potentially divisible infinitely. But you never actually reach an "infinitieth" of the distance. So Zeno's Dichotomy, and his other paradoxes of motion, are trading on moving back and forth between the two types of infinite. This wasn't dishonest on Zeno's part, no one had made this distinction before Aristotle. In light of this distinction, though, Zeno's argument becomes:
4) Any finite distance can be potentially infinitely divided.
5) An actual infinite cannot be traversed.
6) Therefore, no finite distance can be traversed.
And this is obviously fallacious. Specifically, it commits the fallacy of the undistributed middle, where the middle term (infinity in this case) has two different definitions.
In the 19th century, Georg Cantor developed set theory which really messes with everything about infinity. So any detailed discussion of this issue has to be filtered through set theory. Nevertheless, it's still pretty interesting, no?
So Atalanta decides to run forward, say 16 meters. But obviously, before she can run 16 meters, she has to run half that distance, 8 meters. But before she runs 8 meters, she has to run half of that, 4 meters. But before that she has to run 2 meters, 1 meter, 1/2 meter, etc. The upshot is that she can never run any distance. Even if we start by saying she tries to move a Planck length forward (about 10-35 meters), she first has to move half that distance, and half that, etc. So motion is impossible and since it seems that we and everything else moves, the world is an illusion. Roughly, the argument is:
1) Any finite distance can be divided infinitely.
2) An infinite cannot be traversed.
3) Therefore, no finite distance can be traversed.
Then along came Aristotle. He pointed out that we can use "infinite" in two different ways, as a potential amount or an actual amount. A potential infinite is an amount increasing towards infinity as a limit but never actually reaching it. That's what we symbolize with the sideways eight, ∞. At any given point, a potential infinite is a finite amount. An actual infinite, on the other hand, is not increasing towards infinity, it's achieved it. In contemporary set theory this is symbolized by aleph-null: ℵ0. And an actual infinite amount cannot be traversed.
Now, any finite distance can be potentially divisible infinitely. But you never actually reach an "infinitieth" of the distance. So Zeno's Dichotomy, and his other paradoxes of motion, are trading on moving back and forth between the two types of infinite. This wasn't dishonest on Zeno's part, no one had made this distinction before Aristotle. In light of this distinction, though, Zeno's argument becomes:
4) Any finite distance can be potentially infinitely divided.
5) An actual infinite cannot be traversed.
6) Therefore, no finite distance can be traversed.
And this is obviously fallacious. Specifically, it commits the fallacy of the undistributed middle, where the middle term (infinity in this case) has two different definitions.
In the 19th century, Georg Cantor developed set theory which really messes with everything about infinity. So any detailed discussion of this issue has to be filtered through set theory. Nevertheless, it's still pretty interesting, no?
Sunday, July 19, 2020
Long time, no blog
Several months ago I started checking out imgur on a regular basis, and then I created an account. Pretty soon I wrote some posts about philosophy (and other things). But with the political situation right now it's just become a bunch of people throwing around their hatred left and right. I sometimes commented on this, but I found myself becoming tempted to troll. And then I had an epiphany: why the heck was I writing posts about philosophy on imgur when I have a blog? So I'll just start posting some of the things I posted over there, with alterations as I see fit. Maybe that'll kickstart things back up.
Update (30 July): I just realized there was a backlog of comments that I never saw. Like, going back a year and a half. So if you left one and were wondering why it hadn't been posted, it's because I'm a lazy spud, and they're now in place.
Thursday, December 26, 2019
Quote of the Day
"It is through the peasantry that we shall really be able to destroy Christianity, because there is in them a true religion rooted in nature and blood. One is either a Christian or a German. You can't be both."
Adolf Hitler, 1933
The Nazi Master Plan: The Persecution of Christian Churches by Carl E. Schcrake
Adolf Hitler, 1933
The Nazi Master Plan: The Persecution of Christian Churches by Carl E. Schcrake
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
Thursday, June 20, 2019
The issue of abortion
Abortion has been in the news of late because New York state passed a bill allowing abortion at any time during a pregnancy, and Virginia tried to pass a similar one that some claimed even allowed it immediately after birth if the fetus was critical or terminal. Of course, at that point, it would no longer be called a fetus and it would no longer be called abortion.
It seems to me that both sides are not addressing the right issue here, as vain as that is to say. A lot of people say the question is whether the fetus (or zygote or blastocyst in the earlier stages) is alive. But this is a simple question with a simple answer: of course it's alive. It meets all the scientific conditions for life. For that matter, individual sperm cells are alive, although they are haploids rather than diploids. Nor is the question whether the fetus is human life. Every cell in a human being's body is human life, it's a living cell that forms a part of a human being.
What people are really asking is when does a human life begin? That is, when does a unique individual human being begin to exist? Most pro-choice folk say that it's sometime during the pregnancy (some say at birth or even later), pro-life folk say that it's at conception, when the haploid sperm cell unites with the haploid ovum and a living thing that is not identical to either the sperm or ovum -- nor for that matter is it genetically identical to the father or mother -- begins to exist. Of course, many people say we can't know for sure and embrace the pro-choice side (because it unreasonably restricts what the woman can do with her own body) or the pro-life side (because if it might be a human life, we have a moral obligation to protect it). For that matter, many people say we can't know and remain agnostic on the larger question.
The problem with asking when a human life begins is that is still a simple question with a simple answer: a human life begins at conception. That's not a matter of opinion or value judgment, it's a scientific, medical fact. And I think this is why pro-lifers want to end the discussion here, because they are on solid ground while the pro-choicers are not.
But, as you can probably tell, I don't think that is where the discussion should end, because I don't think that's what the real question is. The real question is a two-sided coin. The first side is when does human value begin, and the second side is when do human rights begin? Perhaps we could say the question is not when a human life begins, but when a human being begins. Of course, pro-lifers will say that human value and rights begin when the individual human life begins, and that's a defensible claim. For value to begin at some other point seems arbitrary: there should be a clear indication, a clear event, which can be identified as when a creature has intrinsic value and the right to life. However, there is an objection that can be made here that can't be made (or made as plausibly) when we're just asking when does a human life begin. The objection, or problem, is that it is strongly counter-intuitive to say that an undifferentiated group of cells is a human being in the full sense that it has human rights and human value. This is what (I think) pro-choicers are objecting to: we have a cluster of cells that are dividing and nothing else, and we're being told that it has just as much right to live as the woman in whose body it is dwelling.
One potential response to this is that the fetus is no longer an undifferentiated group of cells by the time the woman discovers she is pregnant. Organs have been formed, and some are even functioning. The fetus's heart begins to beat at about three weeks gestation. However, it's difficult to say that a beating heart is what bestows human value and rights.
By human value I do not mean utilitarian value, what something is capable of accomplishing. In fact, the concept of human value is one of the very few aspects of Christianity I appreciated when I first became a Christian: a severely mentally retarded person, who spends his life in a hospital bed, never contributes anything to society, is a burden on all those around him -- that person has just as much value, rights, is just as important and as absolutely irreplaceable as the most influential thinker, statesman, or artist who ever lived.
At any rate, as I say, while the fetus is definitely a human life, it is at least counter-intuitive to say that -- at least in the very early stages -- it is a human being equipped with human rights and human value. This doesn't constitute a reason to think it is not, it just means the pro-life side has to produce arguments to counter this counter-intuition. I'm sure they think they already have, and I'm not disputing that. I just want to clear the air on exactly what (I think) the issues really are.
It seems to me that both sides are not addressing the right issue here, as vain as that is to say. A lot of people say the question is whether the fetus (or zygote or blastocyst in the earlier stages) is alive. But this is a simple question with a simple answer: of course it's alive. It meets all the scientific conditions for life. For that matter, individual sperm cells are alive, although they are haploids rather than diploids. Nor is the question whether the fetus is human life. Every cell in a human being's body is human life, it's a living cell that forms a part of a human being.
What people are really asking is when does a human life begin? That is, when does a unique individual human being begin to exist? Most pro-choice folk say that it's sometime during the pregnancy (some say at birth or even later), pro-life folk say that it's at conception, when the haploid sperm cell unites with the haploid ovum and a living thing that is not identical to either the sperm or ovum -- nor for that matter is it genetically identical to the father or mother -- begins to exist. Of course, many people say we can't know for sure and embrace the pro-choice side (because it unreasonably restricts what the woman can do with her own body) or the pro-life side (because if it might be a human life, we have a moral obligation to protect it). For that matter, many people say we can't know and remain agnostic on the larger question.
The problem with asking when a human life begins is that is still a simple question with a simple answer: a human life begins at conception. That's not a matter of opinion or value judgment, it's a scientific, medical fact. And I think this is why pro-lifers want to end the discussion here, because they are on solid ground while the pro-choicers are not.
But, as you can probably tell, I don't think that is where the discussion should end, because I don't think that's what the real question is. The real question is a two-sided coin. The first side is when does human value begin, and the second side is when do human rights begin? Perhaps we could say the question is not when a human life begins, but when a human being begins. Of course, pro-lifers will say that human value and rights begin when the individual human life begins, and that's a defensible claim. For value to begin at some other point seems arbitrary: there should be a clear indication, a clear event, which can be identified as when a creature has intrinsic value and the right to life. However, there is an objection that can be made here that can't be made (or made as plausibly) when we're just asking when does a human life begin. The objection, or problem, is that it is strongly counter-intuitive to say that an undifferentiated group of cells is a human being in the full sense that it has human rights and human value. This is what (I think) pro-choicers are objecting to: we have a cluster of cells that are dividing and nothing else, and we're being told that it has just as much right to live as the woman in whose body it is dwelling.
One potential response to this is that the fetus is no longer an undifferentiated group of cells by the time the woman discovers she is pregnant. Organs have been formed, and some are even functioning. The fetus's heart begins to beat at about three weeks gestation. However, it's difficult to say that a beating heart is what bestows human value and rights.
By human value I do not mean utilitarian value, what something is capable of accomplishing. In fact, the concept of human value is one of the very few aspects of Christianity I appreciated when I first became a Christian: a severely mentally retarded person, who spends his life in a hospital bed, never contributes anything to society, is a burden on all those around him -- that person has just as much value, rights, is just as important and as absolutely irreplaceable as the most influential thinker, statesman, or artist who ever lived.
At any rate, as I say, while the fetus is definitely a human life, it is at least counter-intuitive to say that -- at least in the very early stages -- it is a human being equipped with human rights and human value. This doesn't constitute a reason to think it is not, it just means the pro-life side has to produce arguments to counter this counter-intuition. I'm sure they think they already have, and I'm not disputing that. I just want to clear the air on exactly what (I think) the issues really are.
Tuesday, June 4, 2019
It's been a while
It's June and this is my first post since January. It's weird because I have a backlog of posts that are 95% done, and I'd like to get them up and running. For now I'll just tell you a story: last Wednesday night I started having some severe abdominal pain. By 3 or 4 in the morning I'd finally had enough and went to the ER where they promptly did an ultrasound and an MR scan and then took out my gall bladder. It was my first time having surgery and I lost a freaking organ. Anyway, I'm doing OK, trying to take it easy, so I'll start finishing those posts for y'all.
Here's a joke I made up in the ER: Why was the liver so nice to the testicle? Because he wanted to make the ball gladder.
Here's a joke I made up in the ER: Why was the liver so nice to the testicle? Because he wanted to make the ball gladder.
Sunday, January 13, 2019
More recent acquisitions
A close relative of mine died recently and I inherited her books. About half of them have made it onto my bookshelves, the other half I either haven't gone through yet or are in boxes in my garage. The following list is just the ones on the shelves, as well as books I got for Christmas.
Also, if you've left a comment over the last several months and it never got posted, I apologize. I've just posted all the outstanding comments and replied to a few.
SF short story collections
Brian W. Aldiss and Harry Harrison, eds., Nebula Award Stories 2.
Isaac Asimov, Martin Harry Greenberg, and Charles G. Waugh, eds., Flying Saucers.
Lloyd Biggle, Jr., ed., Nebula Award Stories 7.
Ben Bova, ed., The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, volume 2B.
Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles.
---, The Illustrated Man.
Avram Davidson, ed., The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction, 12th series.
Richard Matheson, I Am Legend.
Judith Merril, ed., The Year's Greatest Science-Fiction and Fantasy, 3rd annual volume.
Robert P. Mills, ed., The Worlds of Science Fiction.
Hans Stefan Santesson, ed., The Fantastic Universe Omnibus.
Robert Silverberg, ed., New Dimensions III.
SF novels
Isaac Asimov, I, Robot.
Henry N. Beard and Douglas C. Kenney, Bored of the Rings.
David Brin, The Postman.
Orson Scott Card, Ender's Shadow.
Philip José Farmer, Night of Light.
Alan Dean Foster, Phylogenesis.
Neil Gaiman, American Gods.
---, Anansi Boys.
Tom Godwin, Space Prison (alternate title: The Survivors).
James P. Hogan, Inherit the Stars.
Fred Hoyle, The Black Cloud.
Ursula K. LeGuin, The Lathe of Heaven.
Andre Norton, Key Out of Time.
Tim Powers, Expiration Date.
---, The Stress of Her Regard.
John Ringo, Citadel.
Robert J. Sawyer, Calculating God.
Charles Sheffield, Aftermath.
Allen Steele, Spindrift.
Neal Stephenson, The Diamond Age.
---, Snow Crash.
Jules Verne, The Works of Jules Verne (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea; Journey to the Center of the Earth; Around the World in 80 Days).
Heinlein
Beyond This Horizon.
Citizen of the Galaxy.
Double Star.
Have Spacesuit -- Will Travel.
Orphans of the Sky.
Podkayne of Mars.
The Rolling Stones.
Space Cadet.
Starman Jones.
6 × H (novellas and short stories -- previously titled The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag).
...and there's lots more in the garage.
Niven
Ringworld.
The Ringworld Engineers.
N-Space (short stories, excerpts, and essays).
Playgrounds of the Mind (same).
With Jerry Pournelle, Oath of Fealty.
Books that are actual literature and so I got for my wife
(Some of these are old, so I put the year these particular copies were published in parentheses)
Jane Austen, Emma.
---, Pride and Prejudice.
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote of La Mancha.
Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby (1884).
---, Pickwick Papers (old, but no date on the title page).
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles.
George Eliot, Silas Mariner.
Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera.
Graham Greene, The Power and the Glory.
Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms.
Irving Howe, ed., The Portable Kipling.
F.J. Hudleston, Warriors in Undress (1926).
Washington Irving, The Crayon Papers (old, but no date on the title page).
James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
Rudyard Kipling, Kim.
Richmond Lattimore, trans., The Iliad of Homer.
Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird.
Primo Levi, Moments of Reprieve.
Grant Overton, ed. in chief, The World's One Hundred Best Short Stories, volume 1: Adventure (1927).
---, volume 2: Romance.
---, volume 3: Mystery.
---, volume 4: Love.
---, volume 5: Drama.
---, volume 6: Courage.
---, volume 7: Women.
---, volume 8: Men.
---, volume 9: Ghosts.
---, volume 10: Humor.
Guy Pocock, The Little Room (1926).
Sir Walter Scott, Lay of the Last Minstrel (1898).
---, Ivanhoe.
Shakespeare's Hamlet: The Second Quarto, 1604: Reproduction of the Huntington Library Copy.
John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent.
---, The Moon is Down.
---, Travels with Charley: In Search of America.
---, America and Americans.
William Makepeace Thackeray, The Virginians (1884).
Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass.
The Complete Illustrated Works of Oscar Wilde.
Nonfiction
John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle.
Frederick Copleston, Contemporary Philosophy: Studies of Logical Positivism and Existentialism.
Fred Dretske, Explaining Behavior: Reasons in a World of Causes.
Also, if you've left a comment over the last several months and it never got posted, I apologize. I've just posted all the outstanding comments and replied to a few.
SF short story collections
Brian W. Aldiss and Harry Harrison, eds., Nebula Award Stories 2.
Isaac Asimov, Martin Harry Greenberg, and Charles G. Waugh, eds., Flying Saucers.
Lloyd Biggle, Jr., ed., Nebula Award Stories 7.
Ben Bova, ed., The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, volume 2B.
Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles.
---, The Illustrated Man.
Avram Davidson, ed., The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction, 12th series.
Richard Matheson, I Am Legend.
Judith Merril, ed., The Year's Greatest Science-Fiction and Fantasy, 3rd annual volume.
Robert P. Mills, ed., The Worlds of Science Fiction.
Hans Stefan Santesson, ed., The Fantastic Universe Omnibus.
Robert Silverberg, ed., New Dimensions III.
SF novels
Isaac Asimov, I, Robot.
Henry N. Beard and Douglas C. Kenney, Bored of the Rings.
David Brin, The Postman.
Orson Scott Card, Ender's Shadow.
Philip José Farmer, Night of Light.
Alan Dean Foster, Phylogenesis.
Neil Gaiman, American Gods.
---, Anansi Boys.
Tom Godwin, Space Prison (alternate title: The Survivors).
James P. Hogan, Inherit the Stars.
Fred Hoyle, The Black Cloud.
Ursula K. LeGuin, The Lathe of Heaven.
Andre Norton, Key Out of Time.
Tim Powers, Expiration Date.
---, The Stress of Her Regard.
John Ringo, Citadel.
Robert J. Sawyer, Calculating God.
Charles Sheffield, Aftermath.
Allen Steele, Spindrift.
Neal Stephenson, The Diamond Age.
---, Snow Crash.
Jules Verne, The Works of Jules Verne (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea; Journey to the Center of the Earth; Around the World in 80 Days).
Heinlein
Beyond This Horizon.
Citizen of the Galaxy.
Double Star.
Have Spacesuit -- Will Travel.
Orphans of the Sky.
Podkayne of Mars.
The Rolling Stones.
Space Cadet.
Starman Jones.
6 × H (novellas and short stories -- previously titled The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag).
...and there's lots more in the garage.
Niven
Ringworld.
The Ringworld Engineers.
N-Space (short stories, excerpts, and essays).
Playgrounds of the Mind (same).
With Jerry Pournelle, Oath of Fealty.
Books that are actual literature and so I got for my wife
(Some of these are old, so I put the year these particular copies were published in parentheses)
Jane Austen, Emma.
---, Pride and Prejudice.
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote of La Mancha.
Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby (1884).
---, Pickwick Papers (old, but no date on the title page).
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles.
George Eliot, Silas Mariner.
Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera.
Graham Greene, The Power and the Glory.
Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms.
Irving Howe, ed., The Portable Kipling.
F.J. Hudleston, Warriors in Undress (1926).
Washington Irving, The Crayon Papers (old, but no date on the title page).
James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
Rudyard Kipling, Kim.
Richmond Lattimore, trans., The Iliad of Homer.
Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird.
Primo Levi, Moments of Reprieve.
Grant Overton, ed. in chief, The World's One Hundred Best Short Stories, volume 1: Adventure (1927).
---, volume 2: Romance.
---, volume 3: Mystery.
---, volume 4: Love.
---, volume 5: Drama.
---, volume 6: Courage.
---, volume 7: Women.
---, volume 8: Men.
---, volume 9: Ghosts.
---, volume 10: Humor.
Guy Pocock, The Little Room (1926).
Sir Walter Scott, Lay of the Last Minstrel (1898).
---, Ivanhoe.
Shakespeare's Hamlet: The Second Quarto, 1604: Reproduction of the Huntington Library Copy.
John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent.
---, The Moon is Down.
---, Travels with Charley: In Search of America.
---, America and Americans.
William Makepeace Thackeray, The Virginians (1884).
Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass.
The Complete Illustrated Works of Oscar Wilde.
Nonfiction
John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle.
Frederick Copleston, Contemporary Philosophy: Studies of Logical Positivism and Existentialism.
Fred Dretske, Explaining Behavior: Reasons in a World of Causes.
Monday, December 24, 2018
The Plantinga/Dennett Debate with captions
This is the actual "debate" between Alvin Plantinga and Daniel Dennett. I put "debate" in quotes because there's not as much back-and-forth as a standard debate. It's just Plantinga's presentation, Dennett's response, and Plantinga's counter-response. You can listen to it elsewhere online, but since the audio is so bad I went through it and added captions. Because I just care that much. (Also because I play it for my students and they couldn't follow it.) If anyone can figure out what Plantinga says at 9:52 let me know.
These three presentations later comprised the first three (of six) chapters in Science and Religion: Are They Compatible? (OUP) although Dennett changed several aspects of his presentation. Notably, in the book he doesn't include his "little joke" that he closes with (starting at 1:19:27). I guess it didn't play well with the audience and/or publisher. Dennett's interruption of Plantinga didn't make it into the book either (1:28:35 and following). The final three chapters of the book are Dennett's response to Plantinga's last presentation, Plantinga's response to that, and then Dennett's final response.
So this is my present to you. Merry Christmas. What'd you get me?
These three presentations later comprised the first three (of six) chapters in Science and Religion: Are They Compatible? (OUP) although Dennett changed several aspects of his presentation. Notably, in the book he doesn't include his "little joke" that he closes with (starting at 1:19:27). I guess it didn't play well with the audience and/or publisher. Dennett's interruption of Plantinga didn't make it into the book either (1:28:35 and following). The final three chapters of the book are Dennett's response to Plantinga's last presentation, Plantinga's response to that, and then Dennett's final response.
So this is my present to you. Merry Christmas. What'd you get me?
Saturday, December 22, 2018
Oh man
I'm so sorry I haven't been posting. For whatever reason I haven't had the motivation. It's not that I'm not writing, I'm in the final (I hope) throes of finishing my second book. I have had some personal tragedies in 2018 but I don't think that's why I haven't been keeping up the blog. I'll have something special for a Christmas present in the coming few days. In the meantime I'll just say that I've been watching The Man in the High Castle, based on Philip K. Dick's novel (although it's really just using the novel as a jumping off point), and I have really enjoyed it thus far. The acting is just incredible, better than anything I've ever seen. The story is essentially an alternate history where the Nazis and Japanese won World War 2 and occupy most of the former United States. In the latest (third) season, they have one of the main characters realize that there are multiple universes with versions of the same people, and he says something to the effect of "It's like a Fredric Brown story." I loved this because, as I've pointed out before, Fredric Brown is probably my favorite science-fiction author. I even know the novel they're referring to: What Mad Universe. It was a tiny validation of the greatness of this underappreciated author.
Thursday, August 16, 2018
Recent acquisitions
Fiction:
Isaac Asimov and Groff Conklin, eds., Fifty Short Science Fiction Tales
Tom Boardman, Jr., ed., An ABC of Science Fiction
Ray Bradbury, The Golden Apples of the Sun
Orson Scott Card, Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus
Terry Carr, ed., The Best Science Fiction of the Year #5
Michael Crichton, Timeline
David G. Hartwell, ed., The World Treasury of Science Fiction
Zenna Henderson, Holding Wonder
Robert P. Mills, ed., The Worlds of Science Fiction
Tim Powers, The Anubis Gates
Charles Sheffield, Between the Strokes of Night
Dan Simmons, Carrion Comfort
Allen Steele, Spindrift
Neal Stephenson, Reamde
Nonfiction:
Charles Colson and Nancy Pearcy, How Now Shall We Live?
The Koran (Penguin edition), translated by N.J. Dawood
Comments by Jim S.:
Asimov/Conklin, Boardman, Bradbury, Carr, Hartwell, Henderson, and Mills are all short story collections. Card's Pastwatch is a repurchase; it was one of the books that was lost in shipping when we moved back to the States several years ago. The Anubis Gates is also a repurchase but that's because I gave my first copy to a friend to introduce them to the wonders of Tim Powers -- and then they didn't even like it. And for someone who studies Islamic philosophy, I've only ever used online versions of the Qur'an: I'm glad to finally have a hard copy (well, paperback actually) on my shelf. Technically, in Islamic theology, translations of the Qur'an are not the Qur'an, only the original Arabic is the Qur'an. This is why a lot of Islamic grade schools spend almost their whole time teaching children to recite the Arabic Qur'an from memory, regardless of whether they understand Arabic. Obviously this contrasts with Judaism and Christianity's approaches to the Bible.
All of these books were bought at a small local bookstore run by the municipal library, and most of them were 50¢ or $1.00. The nonfiction books were $2.00 each, and the Sheffield, incredibly, was 25¢, I think because the cover is slightly torn. Unfortunately, they don't have any philosophy that I could find.
Isaac Asimov and Groff Conklin, eds., Fifty Short Science Fiction Tales
Tom Boardman, Jr., ed., An ABC of Science Fiction
Ray Bradbury, The Golden Apples of the Sun
Orson Scott Card, Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus
Terry Carr, ed., The Best Science Fiction of the Year #5
Michael Crichton, Timeline
David G. Hartwell, ed., The World Treasury of Science Fiction
Zenna Henderson, Holding Wonder
Robert P. Mills, ed., The Worlds of Science Fiction
Tim Powers, The Anubis Gates
Charles Sheffield, Between the Strokes of Night
Dan Simmons, Carrion Comfort
Allen Steele, Spindrift
Neal Stephenson, Reamde
Nonfiction:
Charles Colson and Nancy Pearcy, How Now Shall We Live?
The Koran (Penguin edition), translated by N.J. Dawood
Comments by Jim S.:
Asimov/Conklin, Boardman, Bradbury, Carr, Hartwell, Henderson, and Mills are all short story collections. Card's Pastwatch is a repurchase; it was one of the books that was lost in shipping when we moved back to the States several years ago. The Anubis Gates is also a repurchase but that's because I gave my first copy to a friend to introduce them to the wonders of Tim Powers -- and then they didn't even like it. And for someone who studies Islamic philosophy, I've only ever used online versions of the Qur'an: I'm glad to finally have a hard copy (well, paperback actually) on my shelf. Technically, in Islamic theology, translations of the Qur'an are not the Qur'an, only the original Arabic is the Qur'an. This is why a lot of Islamic grade schools spend almost their whole time teaching children to recite the Arabic Qur'an from memory, regardless of whether they understand Arabic. Obviously this contrasts with Judaism and Christianity's approaches to the Bible.
All of these books were bought at a small local bookstore run by the municipal library, and most of them were 50¢ or $1.00. The nonfiction books were $2.00 each, and the Sheffield, incredibly, was 25¢, I think because the cover is slightly torn. Unfortunately, they don't have any philosophy that I could find.
Friday, July 27, 2018
Why Hume's Argument against Miracles Fails
David Hume famously argued against miracles, or more strictly against the rationality of believing in miracles, two and a half centuries ago. And while it was subject to objections immediately -- most notably that it is question-begging -- it is still influential, though, ironically, less in philosophy than in other fields. He presents it in section 10 of his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (click the link and scroll down to page 55). My impression is that his argument is very widely rejected among philosophers -- even the Hume scholar Antony Flew, in his atheist days, argued that, as written, Hume's argument was unsuccessful -- but there are some who defend it. John Earman wrote Hume's Abject Failure: The Argument against Miracles, but then Robert Fogelin wrote A Defense of Hume on Miracles. I'm afraid I haven't read either book. Yet.
Roughly, the argument is as follows: the more frequently something occurs the more probable it is that it will occur again, and the less frequently it occurs the less probable it is that it will occur again. A miracle would be the rarest of all events, totally unique, and would go contrary to our universal experience. Therefore it would be maximally improbable: virtually any explanation would be more probable than that a miracle took place. The usual example of an alleged miracle that enters into the discussion is Jesus' resurrection. According to Hume, regardless of the evidence, it would be more rational to accept any theory, even a conspiracy theory, than to accept the resurrection. So the idea that everyone just went to the wrong tomb, or that Jesus' survived the crucifixion, or that Jesus had an evil twin (these are all real alternative explanations that have been given) are more rational than that a miracle took place.
It seems to me that Hume's argument makes three assumptions that are not justified: that the universe is mechanistic, static, and closed. The mechanistic part essentially means that there is no event in the universe that is not completely determined by the physical events preceding it. The problem with this is that we have reason for thinking this is not the case. On one side we have the apparent randomness of quantum events. I say "apparent" because it's not necessary to believe that these events really are random. Bohmian mechanics explains just as much data as the Copenhagen interpretation, but Bohmian mechanics is strictly deterministic. Nevertheless, it seems to be more ad hoc than explanations which grant that some quantum events are not inevitably produced by preceding events. So many scientists would deny that the universe is mechanistic in the way that Hume's argument requires. On the other side we have the possibility of free agents with free will whose actions are not completely determined by the physical events preceding them. Naturally, free will is an enormous and enormously controversial subject, but at least we can say that most people intuitively believe in it, the arguments against it are indecisive, and the arguments for it, also indecisive, are, nevertheless, reasonably strong. Of course neither of these issues (quantum indeterminacy and free will) speak directly to the possibility of miracles, but they do speak directly to Hume's argument against miracles, since his argument only makes sense within a mechanistic framework.
Hume's second assumption is that the universe is static. This is not the same thing as being mechanistic: a system could be mechanistic without being static, but a static system would automatically be mechanistic. Here the idea is that even if the universe is mechanistic, it is not necessarily static in the way Hume's argument requires. New things may occur, first time events may take place, even though everything is mechanistic and determined. Take a system in which a drop from a river flowing through a forest is deposited in a large basin at a higher altitude every minute or so. This system is completely mechanistic. Accounting for evaporation, say that after 10,000 years, the amount of the water is so immense that the basin splits and disintegrates, dumping the huge mass of water on the forest and river below, obliterating the whole area and completely changing the environment. Ex hypothesi that had never happened before. Using Hume's criteria, we should assess the probability that it would happen as maximally improbable. But clearly it's not. In fact, we could probably predict that something like that would happen. Again, this doesn't speak directly to the possibility of miracles but to Hume's argument against them. If the universe isn't static then there is no reason to accept his probability account.
The third assumption is the big one: that the universe is closed. This is basically a challenge to the idea that the more something happens within a system the more probable it is that it will happen again. But if the universe is open, then there may be forces that exist independently of the universe which can produce effects within it. In fact, these could potentially even be mechanistic, static supernatural causes, but due to their transcending the universe do not happen predictably within our space-time frame.
Of course, the meaning of "miracle" is "sign": it's a sign of a transcendent agent acting in order to bring about an effect within the universe. An unprecedented supernatural event that just seemed random would not bespeak of an agent who intended to bring it about for a reason, but miracles do precisely that. With Jesus' resurrection, it's pretty obvious. To paraphrase Wolfhart Pannenberg, the significance of the resurrection is not that some guy came back to life, it's that this particular guy did -- a guy who acted and spoke as if he had the authority that only God can have, and was arrested for blasphemy and put to death for sedition. For that guy to rise from the dead amounts to his divine vindication. Of course, this is not a logical absolute, it's a common sense assessment. If there were a mechanistic, static, yet transcendent cause that brought it about, it would be an enormous coincidence that a guy who was executed for making radical claims about God and the resurrection of the dead would effectively have his execution reversed; that by sheer coincidence a resurrection from the dead just happened to that one guy who said death could not hold him. That would be incredibly improbable. But of course no one is making that claim.
Roughly, the argument is as follows: the more frequently something occurs the more probable it is that it will occur again, and the less frequently it occurs the less probable it is that it will occur again. A miracle would be the rarest of all events, totally unique, and would go contrary to our universal experience. Therefore it would be maximally improbable: virtually any explanation would be more probable than that a miracle took place. The usual example of an alleged miracle that enters into the discussion is Jesus' resurrection. According to Hume, regardless of the evidence, it would be more rational to accept any theory, even a conspiracy theory, than to accept the resurrection. So the idea that everyone just went to the wrong tomb, or that Jesus' survived the crucifixion, or that Jesus had an evil twin (these are all real alternative explanations that have been given) are more rational than that a miracle took place.
It seems to me that Hume's argument makes three assumptions that are not justified: that the universe is mechanistic, static, and closed. The mechanistic part essentially means that there is no event in the universe that is not completely determined by the physical events preceding it. The problem with this is that we have reason for thinking this is not the case. On one side we have the apparent randomness of quantum events. I say "apparent" because it's not necessary to believe that these events really are random. Bohmian mechanics explains just as much data as the Copenhagen interpretation, but Bohmian mechanics is strictly deterministic. Nevertheless, it seems to be more ad hoc than explanations which grant that some quantum events are not inevitably produced by preceding events. So many scientists would deny that the universe is mechanistic in the way that Hume's argument requires. On the other side we have the possibility of free agents with free will whose actions are not completely determined by the physical events preceding them. Naturally, free will is an enormous and enormously controversial subject, but at least we can say that most people intuitively believe in it, the arguments against it are indecisive, and the arguments for it, also indecisive, are, nevertheless, reasonably strong. Of course neither of these issues (quantum indeterminacy and free will) speak directly to the possibility of miracles, but they do speak directly to Hume's argument against miracles, since his argument only makes sense within a mechanistic framework.
Hume's second assumption is that the universe is static. This is not the same thing as being mechanistic: a system could be mechanistic without being static, but a static system would automatically be mechanistic. Here the idea is that even if the universe is mechanistic, it is not necessarily static in the way Hume's argument requires. New things may occur, first time events may take place, even though everything is mechanistic and determined. Take a system in which a drop from a river flowing through a forest is deposited in a large basin at a higher altitude every minute or so. This system is completely mechanistic. Accounting for evaporation, say that after 10,000 years, the amount of the water is so immense that the basin splits and disintegrates, dumping the huge mass of water on the forest and river below, obliterating the whole area and completely changing the environment. Ex hypothesi that had never happened before. Using Hume's criteria, we should assess the probability that it would happen as maximally improbable. But clearly it's not. In fact, we could probably predict that something like that would happen. Again, this doesn't speak directly to the possibility of miracles but to Hume's argument against them. If the universe isn't static then there is no reason to accept his probability account.
The third assumption is the big one: that the universe is closed. This is basically a challenge to the idea that the more something happens within a system the more probable it is that it will happen again. But if the universe is open, then there may be forces that exist independently of the universe which can produce effects within it. In fact, these could potentially even be mechanistic, static supernatural causes, but due to their transcending the universe do not happen predictably within our space-time frame.
Of course, the meaning of "miracle" is "sign": it's a sign of a transcendent agent acting in order to bring about an effect within the universe. An unprecedented supernatural event that just seemed random would not bespeak of an agent who intended to bring it about for a reason, but miracles do precisely that. With Jesus' resurrection, it's pretty obvious. To paraphrase Wolfhart Pannenberg, the significance of the resurrection is not that some guy came back to life, it's that this particular guy did -- a guy who acted and spoke as if he had the authority that only God can have, and was arrested for blasphemy and put to death for sedition. For that guy to rise from the dead amounts to his divine vindication. Of course, this is not a logical absolute, it's a common sense assessment. If there were a mechanistic, static, yet transcendent cause that brought it about, it would be an enormous coincidence that a guy who was executed for making radical claims about God and the resurrection of the dead would effectively have his execution reversed; that by sheer coincidence a resurrection from the dead just happened to that one guy who said death could not hold him. That would be incredibly improbable. But of course no one is making that claim.
Friday, May 4, 2018
The Summer of Dune
Several years ago I finally got around to reading Dune and absolutely loved it. I went on to its sequel, Dune Messiah, then realized I wanted to read all of Frank Herbert's books in one go, so I put it off until I bought all of them and had the time. I'm usually reading a novel and a short story collection at any given time, so I decided to make all the novels I read this summer Herbert's Dune novels. I'll re-read the first two, and then continue on to Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune, and Chapterhouse: Dune. Herbert's son has cowritten several sequels, prequels, and interquels to his father's legacy, and I might check those out, although the reviews don't treat them as anywhere near as good.
Tuesday, April 24, 2018
Holy crap
You may have seen this, but I'm still overawed by it. This is a video pieced together from the surface of comet 67P by the Philae lander from the Rosetta probe (European Space Agency). Wow. Just wow.
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