RoR: Forum

Doug did my job for me and made the exact same objection I would have, that the term is inherently relation, and that I even considered making, but didn't.

I'll ask you this, Ed. What is the full etymology of "special" from English thru Latin to Indo-European?

Post 81

Monday, March 8, 2010 - 6:09am

Ted,

Examine the following sentence in the context of Fred's posts:

Everything's determined, and man isn't special, so he doesn't have free will.

Ed

Post 82

Monday, March 8, 2010 - 7:42am

Ed:

Ted, good luck. Meanwhile...

Are you talking about Wolfram's assertion regarding the incalculability(not calculability) of free will? If not that, then what? I do not for a second think that 'everything is predetermined,' and neither do I interpret Wolfram that way when quoting him. In fact, his argument seems to me to be that the entire concept of 'predetermined' is totally moot, a non-starter. WOlfram seemed to me to be defending the concept of 'free will' with science, even against the possibility of a 'predetermined completely deterministic universe.'

Not even -you- can accurately predict what you will do or think or say tomorrow with any certainty. How could I or any other intelligent agent possibly do that for you?

Lather, rinse, repeat.

"special" is a weasel word, it can mean anything and everything. I for sure am reacting to one definition of the word 'special' (as in, self-awarded participation trophy special)when I say "No, thanks", and you are defending some other definition of the word 'special.'

But, it is possible to do that without making things up, and attributing to me things I clearly don't believe.

In fact, I've already (long) acknowledged the sense of 'special' in which I agree that mankind's intelligence is 'special', as in, a local maximus in the evolution of intelligence.

My assertion that the evolution of intelligence, ie, evolution, with mankind a part of that, is a process -- is not an assertion 'that everything is predetermined."

Said another way, Wolfram is not Newton.

When you react and rail on against the process of 'evolution' like that, especially in the context of Machan's thread about Dover and intelligent design, you share a characteristic with Bible Thumpers, but it is rude of me to point that out, so I won't, even though of course, I just did.

Point to the post where I say 'everything is predetermined', or acknowledge what I suspect, that this is as much about the reception of ideas as it is the transmission of ideas, for which we can both blame the weasely nature of the word 'special.'

If I've misunderstand the special meaning of special that you mean to assert when you claim mankind's intelligence is 'special', and this is such that you claim is other than 'as a local maximus', or even, if you want to identify certain aspects that you claim are irreproducible anywhere else in the universe(and thus, are 'special' in the sense of exclusively unique in all of time and space except for purely parochial details), then please, have at it, and Halelluleah, Bro'.

I am not going to dig up any quotes from religious zealouts in the past and their claims of 'anti-Man!' hurled at evolution, because I am not nearly that interested in religious zealots as an area of research. But clearly, when modern philosophers borrow the lexicon, they all but beg for the comparison.

regards,
Fred

(Edited by Fred Bartlett on 3/08, 10:08am)

Post 83

Monday, March 8, 2010 - 9:36am

I am sorry, Ed, did you post the etymology in the invisible font?

Post 84

Monday, March 8, 2010 - 3:34pm

Ed,

Just like value necessarily implying valuer, special implies relation. To deny either of these necessities is to take on a very different metaphysical stance than I know you advocate.

But besides, tell me if I adequately understand you here.

You want man to be special in a sort of stagnant way, one that will be the same tomorrow. You do this by reducing quantity (the ever growing number of species and complexity) into a series of qualities that covers the flux of life.

This series would reduce all the known entities into perhaps 3 types, unconscious, perceptually conscious, and rationally conscious. We are the most evolved sort, so this implies special.

If this is your argument, I'm with you until the last bit. I would be with you if you said unique rather than special. Unique signifies difference, but not ranked difference, as special does. Humanism belongs in ethics, not in metaphysics.

Post 85

Monday, March 8, 2010 - 5:26pm

Fred,

Are you talking about Wolfram's assertion regarding the incalculability(not calculability) of free will?

No. I'm talking about the "special" nature of man; the one that includes volitional consciousness, rationality, potentiality, etc.

I used that sentence to get Ted to think about the issue -- rather than play along with his attempt to initiate a type of schoolyard "he-said, she said" word-joust with me. Little does he know, it was you who had brought up that word, not me.

"special" is a weasel word, it can mean anything and everything.

I agree. It's not a good word to use for our specific disagreement. We should find a word that refers to at least what I mean -- the metaphysical nature of man (i.e., that very thing which justifies man's individual rights) -- if not also a word that refers to what you mean.

In fact, I've already (long) acknowledged the sense of 'special' in which I agree that mankind's intelligence is 'special', as in, a local maximus in the evolution of intelligence.

But this is looking at what makes man "cool" (a trial-word that is probably better than "special") by checking to see which other beings he dominates -- and thinking that man'd be less cool if super-intelligent aliens discovered us (because they'd dominate us). You said something to the effect that super-smart aliens would/could/should treat us like we treat dogs or cattle.

However, if I'm right about man's nature (volitional consciousness, rationality, potentiality, etc.) justifying man's rights, then those rights are justified without the need to form categorical or conceptualized pecking-order relations to other life forms (we'd have the rights even if we weren' top-dogs).

Another way to say this is that we'd be "special" no matter what other life forms existed. A perhaps better way to say that is that we'd be "cool" no matter what other life forms existed. The long way to say it is that man is such an important being, that his "human" nature (rather than any kind of relation to any kind of other being) is, itself, what it is that justifies his individual rights.

When you react and rail on against the process of 'evolution' like that ...

I'm not railing against evolution, I'm saying that evolution "created" something very "special" (man) -- a being with volitional consciousness, rationality, nearly-unlimited potentiality, the capacity for sustainable joy and earned self-respect (happiness and esteem), ... need I go on?

:-)

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 3/08, 5:41pm)

Post 86

Monday, March 8, 2010 - 5:37pm

Fred,

If I've misunderstand the special meaning of special that you mean to assert when you claim mankind's intelligence is 'special', and this is such that you claim is other than 'as a local maximus', or even, if you want to identify certain aspects that you claim are irreproducible anywhere else in the universe ...

No, I'm not saying that -- I'm not saying that man is some kind of God-created, unique being in all of the universe (chosen to be #1). I'm saying that man has this super-cool nature (which justifies his individual rights, for instance). If other beings were found which had this same kind of super-cool nature (e.g., Star Trek's Romulans), they'd have individual rights, too.

In this hypothetical case, it wouldn't matter whether man was also super-cool and had justified rights or not -- because what it would be that justifies the Romulans' rights is not their pecking-order relation to other known beings, but their nature in-and-of itself. An unclear way to say this is that Romulans would be "special", regardless.

:-)

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 3/08, 6:06pm)

Post 87

Monday, March 8, 2010 - 5:59pm

Doug,

Just like value necessarily implying valuer, special implies relation. To deny either of these necessities is to take on a very different metaphysical stance than I know you advocate.

Special is a bad word to get at the difference in views (i.e., the issue) which I have with Fred. I alluded to this in my first response to you. Nevertheless, thank you for making sure that I really do get the point.

But besides, tell me if I adequately understand you here.

You want man to be special in a sort of stagnant way, one that will be the same tomorrow. You do this by reducing quantity (the ever growing number of species and complexity) into a series of qualities that covers the flux of life.

This series would reduce all the known entities into perhaps 3 types, unconscious, perceptually conscious, and rationally conscious.

I guess you could say that I want man to be special stagnantly, but I want all natures to stay the same.

For instance, I want baseballs that I throw to my nephew to continue to take the same kind of trajectory as before (according to the laws of physics). But that doesn't imply that I'm not being objective, it's recognition that existence is identity. Man's nature will "be the same tomorrow" so, I guess you could say that I want things a certain way, but you could also say, alternatively, that I'm just interested in the facts of the matter (and that I understand what it means to be human).

I also think I focus on quality over quantity (as you suggest I do) when thinking about man and his nature. Your '3-entities' ontology seems acceptable to me -- but in certain contexts there would be things missing in your outline of the 3rd kind of entity (rationally conscious).

"Rational consciousness" might be all you need in order to experience the rich life of a human (and be "deserving" of individual rights), but I'm not sure about that yet. Some other, unmentioned items would be volition, potentiality, and the capacity for happiness.

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 3/08, 6:04pm)

Post 88

Monday, March 8, 2010 - 8:49pm

Sorry Ed. Reading over my last post I realized I didn't add much to what you already agreed with. Also didn't mean to question your objectivity by my phrasings, just to catch your aim.

If you would entertain a tangent, please. You mentioned man's ability to reason as a separate element from his volition. I think I've seen an argument saying they were corolaries. I figure there is an essential relationship between the two, but can't figure out if one is more fundamental, or if one could exist without the other.

If it's of any help, potentiality seems to be directly attributable to volition and reason. And I doubt happiness has a direct link to the connection your trying for. The objectivist theory seems to implicitly say that rights could be valid even if we weren't emotional creatures, though I'm sure they might be different.

(Edited by Doug Fischer on 3/08, 8:50pm)

Post 89

Monday, March 8, 2010 - 9:26pm

Volition is the precondition of reason. Without that capacity to choose, you can't reason - that is, choose between true and false. Reasoning, itself is a choice - it isn't automatic.

They are separate only in the sense that the capacity to choose must exist before one could start to reason, but they are tied tightly together in that reasoning is one of the forms of choosing and that choosing is at the heart of reasoning.

It is because we are creatures that must make choices and then act on our choices that individual rights arise. If it is right that we live, then it is right that we be able to choose and act in those ways that our life requires. At this fundamental level, choice and force are opposites - and force is the denial of choice. Volition and individual rights are inseparable. All of that can be said another way; rights are moral conditions. Morality presupposes values which in turn presuppose choice.

We are wired to be happy when we achieve our values. We are wired to experience our values in the world we see - in art - and in the world we imagine, in our fears and hopes for the future. Our emotional nature is a given. And not only do we have a capacity to make choices... We MUST make choices, including choosing what is good for us and what we will act to gain and/or keep - values. Our nature is to integrate and internalize and automate our values - and in doing so we create and shape our emotional nature - we program our future emotional responses.

We need volition to use reason and logic in forming the values, and they are necessary to direct our actions... if we are to have any success. And then we go through life reverberating to these values. These are the direct logical connections between volition-reason-values-happiness. Put another way, generalized, it is metaphysics-epistemology-ethics-psychology.

(Edited by Steve Wolfer on 3/08, 9:40pm)

Post 90

Tuesday, March 9, 2010 - 10:27am

Ed:

Super-cool is probably closer, and I'd agree with that. But, so could all of possibly billions of other nodes, other local maximi, be super-cool, in special and unique ways. I revel in our local super-coolness, even, special local super-coolness, unique just like all snowflakes are unique in the (purely hypothetical at this point)tree-like evolution of intelligence in the universe that I am purely imagining, as there is absolutely no objective evidence for same; the first such evidence, if it is ever obtained, will either be revolutionary, or possibly, the dusk of mankind as the dominant local node.

As for man's rights, Joan of Arc also had rights, and she clutched them to her breast, even as she was burned at the stake. In the same way, in some hypothetical future where we ran into another dominant agressive intelligence, we would clutch man's rights and even claim them as ours, as we were rounded up like cattle and treated like relatively dumb animals.

We could even argue in advance, that it would be in their best interest to trade with us, and be right, and still have no influence on what actually happens one way or the other.

The inverse is also possible, and the question is, how will we behave, as the possible dominant node?

For a hint, there is how we have behaved--as having dominion, because we could. I am not passing any judgement with that pure observation, I am by extension implying that we have no basis to expect much better or worse if/when we ever find ourselves in the alternate role.

There are other implications of parallel intelligent evolution in the universe. It may be that we are sufficiently isolated by our mutual event cones such that they will not cross until far in the future, but in general, that could happen at any time in the relative stage of each other's evolution. The chances of those event cones crossing at similar or near scale points in our mutual nodal development is, I think, mathematically very small; technological advances grow at an ever accelerating rate. The liklihood is, the far more advanced node reaches out and finds the the less advanced node, not vice versa. Thus, if we are the less advanced node in some hypothetical race to the top with an unknown neighbor node, it makes abslutely no difference to the outcome if we 'don't look', or try to make ourselves low profile. Any such advanced development would eventually sweep by us.

If we are not that wave, then the liklihood is, I beleive, that we'd be swept up by any such wave.

Seek or be found. Sweep or be swept.

Not quite kill or be killed, but like that, in terms of remaining the local maximus in the evolution of intelligence.

In any imagined federation of nodal intelligence, I don't think it is going to have an infinite spectrum. A line will be drawn, between those building and visiting zoos, and those living humanely in the zoos.

It seems like, to me, there should be a sense of purpose, a struggle to reach that line.

OTOH, when I listen to modern political debate, I'm thinking that some of our fellow naked sweaty apes think it wouldn't be so bad to live in someone else's zoo.

Hell, Congress is debating building our own.

regards,
Fred

Post 91

Tuesday, March 9, 2010 - 8:16pm