Questioning Fundamentals

Thanks Anthony, but that's way too many words to describe an idiot. Not to mention I can't understand half of it. I'd say he just doesn't understand basic logic, and leave it at that.

Post 21

Tuesday, November 12, 2002 - 2:25pm

Anthony Tits expounded;
"A philosophy such as Objectivism, that begins with an axiomatic approach to existence, identity, and consciousness, cannot easily be refuted."

Perhaps not by other objectivists, but this kind of approach has been largely rejected by science and philosophy as a whole since the 1920s, the failure of Carnaps project most significantly comes to mind.

For your info, Carnap (in Der Logische Aufbau) and many before him, attempted to reduce science into logic, observation terms and set theory. Of course this would be a huge epistemological windfall if it were possible. If we could reduce psychology for example to axiomatic terms (a translational reduction) the reduction would be welcome. Of course we cannot. (Particularly since Godels proof - if we can't even reduce mathematics to axiomatics - what hope is there for psychology) Since therefore is no "absolute" mathematics (or maybe you disagree with Godel and the companion piece in physics Heisenbergs principle, how can there be an "absolute reality" except in our imaginations. Hence, many of the common arguments (including yours) in favour of certain ontologies are fallacious.

No one at all (except objectivists and maybe dualists (a low swipe I admit)), not psychologists, not neuroscientists, cognitive scientists, computer scientists nor philosophers believe for a second that we can reduce identity, consciousness or any other of these concepts, nor science, let alone the higher level conceptual sciences to axiomatic terms.

The reason objectivists are out on their own philosophically is that they still cling to this Cartesian ideal, the quest for certainty. Which was conceded (since Hume) to be a failed quest.

Unfortuntely for objectivism (as a qua-philosophy) this project was discarded some 50 years ago by (far and away) the majority of thinkers (of all persuasions).

Objectivism is make believe. Where do your axioms arise from? They arise from observation and reason presumably, thus you are attempting to validate an axiomatic system that purportedly explains pyschology by using pyschology (or some other empirical science) in the validation.

You say it is not easily refuted, no, most religions are not easily refuted either.

However there is no requirement on my part for providing any refutation, the argument is simply invalid since it assumes what it seeks to explain.

God Bless,
Steve

Post 22

Tuesday, November 12, 2002 - 6:56pm

Steve,

You begin your argument by deliberately distorting the spelling of my last name, hopefully that gave you some pleasure. It was not very original though, I've heard and seen it before

Thank you for giving me a breakdown of modern philosophy and demonstrating how clever everyone is in rejecting the fundamental axioms of Objectivism. You still have not shown me exactly how these axioms may be refuted. I don't think you can. Your appeals to majority opinion do not signify. They are merely variants of an ad baculum fallacy.

Steve's attempt to refute fundamental axioms:

"However there is no requirement on my part for providing any refutation, the argument is simply invalid since it assumes what it seeks to explain."

Are you then saying that everything that followed your final statement bears no weight at all? What was all that stuff you wrote? I think the failure of your refutation lies in the fact that you cannot prove a negative. In the very act of denying existence (objective reality) you are already affirming that something exists, otherwise you would have nothing to deny, would you?

Why don't you take your postmodern graffitti elsewhere and pollute some other site with it? Or are you afraid that others will not be clever enough to catch your internal contradictions? You might go to the Ayn Rand Institute, I heard they are currently looking for victims.

Yours,

Mr. Teets

Post 23

Tuesday, November 12, 2002 - 9:27pm

I don't have much to add to Mr. Teets' post except this :

"most religions are not easily refuted either"

Actually they are very easily refuted. And so are you (since you have no position to speak of, that's rather obvious).

Post 24

Wednesday, November 13, 2002 - 12:53pm

Anthony wrote,
" Are you then saying that everything that followed your final statement bears no weight at all? What was all that stuff you wrote? I think the failure of your refutation lies in the fact that you cannot prove a negative. "

What I am saying is there is that objectivism doesn't require refutation - it logically shoots itself in the foot by presenting a fallacious circular argument. As myself and Brendon (and the rest of academic philosophy, math, logic and science internationally) have shown.

so I repeat

"Objectivism is make believe. Where do your axioms arise from? They arise from observation and reason presumably, thus you are attempting to validate an axiomatic system that purportedly explains pyschology by using pyschology (or some other empirical science) in the validation. "

This is the shortcoming of any axiomatic system - they are closed systems (they work well for programming languages and relational databases). Alas, the universe isn't like that.

By reducing identity, existence and consciousness to axioms you are claiming that propositions obtained from such axioms evaluate necessarily to either true or false.

This is simply absurd, and I have the weight of modern science (in particular, cognitive science) behind me. Why not just admit you got it wrong and swallow your pride. Or are you both so dogmatic as to further damage the image of your philosophy by swinging metaphorical baseball bats at people that present coherent arguments to the contrary. This has been warned about in an article on your beloved web site on Tuesday by Joseph Rowlands.

I have said in an earlier posting some remedies that I think objectivist should look to in order that they might recover some ground. These remedies involve taking a weaker stance in regard to the radical foundationalist one which you espouse (which has been pointed out is completely at odds with the apparent alignment you have with an empiricist epistemology.)

Instead of just slagging me off as a wanker or a troller in the juvenille manner in which you have, why not listen to what I have to say with some humility - you might actually learn something.

steve.

Post 25

Wednesday, November 13, 2002 - 1:26pm

My apologies, my first sentence should read

"What I am saying is that..." (typo)

Additionally, Daniel Dennett explains quite nicely why it is that it is impossible to axiomatise consciousness.

"the very best evidence there could be that you had made a mistake in attributing to someone the beliefs that �p� and �p->q� was the evidence that you should also attribute the belief that �not q�".

A successful axiomatisation of consciousness would result in a 100% predictive outcome of belief ascription. Of course this is simply unrealisable. And even if you do believe it is at least possible you have to commit to a kind of Laplacian determinism (and there goes your refutation of fatalism - freewill goes out the window)

Look guys, there are solutions - the first step is to drop the radical foundationalism, and I note your Glenn Lamont has taken the first step in his article (top of the list on your site today)

"Ayn Rand's works integrated fiction with philosophy, so it's not surprising that some of Objectivism's philosophic terms have a little creative color to them. "Benevolent universe" and "objective reality" are two metaphors I hope we keep." (Lamont, 2002)

By admitting the predicate "objective reality" is a metaphor, you are automatically dropping any ontological commitment that might be contained within the statement.

Good first move, it will be people like Lamont that will take your philosophy forward.

steve

Post 26

Wednesday, November 13, 2002 - 7:13pm

How is an affirmation a fallacious circular argument Steve? An affirmation is simply an affirmation, an axiom, a place to begin, a fundamental. We don't quibble about fundamentals. You are the individual who refuses to accept the facts of existence. You consistently refer to the works of modern philosophers in the fatal attempt to prove that you are right to assume that there is no objective reality. I suppose you will also have to conclude that the philosophers you cite do not actually exist either in an objective reality. So what is your point?

You said:

"A successful axiomatisation of consciousness would result in a 100% predictive outcome of belief ascription."

Where did you get that? Steve I really think you need to read up a little more on the Objectivist position on reason. I was going to say more earlier when you made the statement:

"The reason objectivists are out on their own philosophically is that they still cling to this Cartesian ideal, the quest for certainty."

You also said earlier:

"The argument (from axioms) is circular, you want to claim both that the objective reality is independant of our minds but that there is an objective reality - how do we know, um??? perhaps you just made it up Cartesian style. Of course there is no evidence for an objective reality (there can't be it is independant to our minds) but one exists (I'm sure)...

You are certainly ascribing a lot of non Objectivist positions to Objectivism. Is this just you swinging bats around? You know you should be more careful in your use of the accusatory stance if you are not certain of the position of your own opponent. You may want to read Ayn Rand's "Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology" as you will find the answers to some of your riddles clearly explained. I don't know if you understand that the derivative logics you mention in prior postings do not invalidate the law of identity. You must employ logic in the attempt to conceptualize your thoughts even when your thoughts are employed in the effort to refute fundamental axioms. That is what we have been saying to you all along. You have somehow turned this statement around and accused Objectivism of employing this "circular fallacious reasoning" not realizing that this was your own position. Here we are again full circle with you leading off.

I still think you are just trolling.

Post 27

Wednesday, November 13, 2002 - 8:20pm

Anthony, we seem to be talking past each other.

This is what you said.

"A philosophy such as Objectivism, that begins with an axiomatic approach to existence, identity, and consciousness, cannot easily be refuted."

OK. Lets try again.

Kurt Godel showed us in 1931 that there exists some statements that cannot be proven true, in essense the "excluded middle" (the undecidable) as Tremblay put it, comes into play at least in "reality" (and bizzarely in maths). Certainly within a *closed* axiomatic system all the statements can be made true, but OUTSIDE of that system there will be other statements that are unprovable. This results in an outright inability of any axiomatic system (yes that includes your one Anthony) to provide proof of itself.

Hence, any attempt to use the axiomatic system to justify itself is circular or at least question begs.

And, thus, ALL attempts to axiomatise identity, existence and consciousness will fail. They fail not because they are bad ideas or they might be false or they seem incorrect, or whatever, but because these types of concepts are not axiomatisable.

The reason why they are not axiomatisable is because there is much contention as to what consciousness is, what is existence, (objectivists certainly don't have a monopoly on the definition of these concepts), there is disagreement over identity, hence these concepts are open to interpretation - there certainly is no unanimous consensus.

The kinds of things that *are* axiomatisable are algebraically closed systems. But they don't prove themselves!

Bottom line is - you can't axiomatise reality (let alone math or science). No one in their right mind believes you can. And everyone who has done a little study, realises it is a hopeless endeavour to even try.

The mere fact that you claim objectivism is an axiomatic system automatically tells me (according to Godel, that it is incomplete and inconsistent), thus (as I have said several times already) there is no need to show any refutation of any of your axioms.

Anthony, these issues turn up time and time again with axiomatic systems, and have been written about at length by Turing, Church, Quine, Penrose, Heisenberg, Einstien, Frege, Davidson, Ramsey, Dennett, etc etc etc... ad infinitum.

Mate you can't axiomatise life. Not only is it a bad idea it is simply logically impossible. There are no sets of valid and complete axioms of existence, identity, and consciousness, hence there is nothing to refute.

Steve.

Post 28

Wednesday, November 13, 2002 - 11:53pm

Actually Godel's Theorem applies to mathematical systems, not philosophy in general.

The only people who talk above people's heads are us, to you. You are not intelligent enough to understand a simple concept like "axiom". As for you, I'm not sure how you could talk above our heads.

Post 29

Thursday, November 14, 2002 - 10:48am

Brendan wrote: "Positing the issue as a choice between dependence and independence is a false dichotomy � there really is a third way."

Francois replied: �OK, now you're mangling basic laws of logic. Are you just ignoring the law of excluded middle, or are you an idiot? �

Brendan replies: Bonjour, Francois. As I understand it, the law of the excluded middle is a principle in formal logic that says a statement or proposition is either true or false (or not true) as a matter of logical necessity. I can�t see its relevance to my above statement.

Brendan wrote: "As to your example, you have precisely illustrated my point. You are in reality an engaged person, and this fact of reality is dependent on your relationship with your fianc�e. Likewise for her. That�s a matter of fact."

Francois replied: �Talk about missing the point. I am still physically and mentally independent from her. She is outside of my sphere of personhood. That doesn't mean I can't be engaged to her.�

Brendan replies: As I argued previously, your status as an engaged person depends on your fianc�e�s status as an engaged person. If your fianc�e is in fact �outside of your sphere of personhood� your relationship with her must be a somewhat distant one. You might like to discuss this with her � before the wedding.

Post 30

Thursday, November 14, 2002 - 12:28pm

"If your fianc�e is in fact �outside of your sphere of personhood� your relationship with her must be a somewhat distant one."

Actually no, it's not a distant relationship. We are very intimate.

I don't understand what that has to do with the fact that you are wrong. Being independent entities does not imply that no relation exists between entities. I tire of repeating myself to a silly troll.

Post 31

Thursday, November 14, 2002 - 12:52pm

Tremblay said,
"Actually Godel's Theorem applies to mathematical systems, not philosophy in general.

Godel's theorem applies to axiomatic systems. In fact any axiomatic system and that includes systems where vague concepts have been reduced to axiomatised sets of propositions.

The reason scientists attempt to do this is so that model-theoretic or proof-theoretic concepts (or sets of explicit propositions and the valid queries or functions that can be applied over those axioms,) are algebraically closed and therefore return truth valued expressions.

As I have said, this works fine for some kinds of limited systems (such as computer systems, databases, math, calculus etc) where you want the return of truth values for finite sets of propositions.

It doesn't however work for most of science, in particular it doesn't even have a hope in hell of representing psychology or higher semantic content or conceptual sciences.

You also say,
"You are not intelligent enough to understand a simple concept like "axiom". "

Not that I wanted to appeal to any authority Tremblay but given that I hold postgraduate degrees in Computer Science and Philosophy I think I have a reasonable idea what an axiom is.

Although I am quite prepared to accept I am wrong, seems like Godel, Frege, Quine, Russell and many others get it wrong as well Tremblay, perhaps you could put mathematics and science out of it's misery and give us all the correct interpretation of Godels theorem and/or what an axiom is (I seem to somehow remember having this debate once with one of my recalcitrant 1st year.)

In essense and as I keep seeming to repeat but which you and your mate Teets don't seem to get - you cannot axiomatise psychology, hence you cannot forward axioms of identity, consciousness and existence that represent (in any wider context) these concepts.

Sure if you want to place some strict constraints around these concepts then show some algebraic proofs within a tightly closed and finite system that you have constructed that will work. But it won't in anyway represent "reality" and hence your project to have axioms backing up any claim to an objective reality will have failed.

Look just accept it (like the rest of science) and get on with it. Trying to prove otherwise, you'll just waste your life in frustration - we've all moved on from axiomatic reductionism Tremblay.

god bless
steve.

Post 32

Thursday, November 14, 2002 - 6:07pm

Hi Steve,

I found your posts interesting in the sense that I was curious how far you will go to camouflage that you are simply a cynic. Which begs the question what is it that you do not want to see, commit to, or what you do not want to act on? Holding up cynicism as a virtue is nothing less than pathetic but it is also a rude and pompous stance towards people who are constructive and creative.

Michael

Post 33

Thursday, November 14, 2002 - 9:12pm

Micheal, your post as it stands doesn't warrant a reply. Any argument that it correctly interprets my position I'd suggest is tenuous to say the least.

If you care to discuss the arguments I have forwarded I'd be more than happy to engage.

cheers
Steve

Post 34

Tuesday, November 19, 2002 - 6:32am

Francois wrote: �I don't understand what that has to do with the fact that you are wrong. Being independent entities does not imply that no relation exists between entities. I tire of repeating myself to a silly troll.�

You haven�t made any substantive argument here, Francois, so I must assume the thread has run its course.

And if you think this is a troll, there is a simple remedy. Don�t reply. Au revoir, and best wishes for your impending nuptials.

Post 35

Tuesday, November 19, 2002 - 1:05pm

That's ok. You can consider it unsubstantive if you want. Unless you give a good reason why, I don't really care.

Post 36

Tuesday, November 19, 2002 - 7:44pm

There once was a troll named Brendan
Who thought reason was something to abandon
So he took on Francois, and belittled his squaw
You see we'll never know what these things end in

But Francois was no fool for he'd been to school
At the Objectivist "lycee" of hard knocks
So he said bye to Brendan, (he couldn't befriend him)
And he went on his merry old way,

Now the moral of my tale is don't talk to a troll
For they're riddled and exceptionally lame
They don't know Francois from his soon to be sqaw
It's their premises that we need to blame!

Post 37

Tuesday, November 19, 2002 - 8:45pm

You're getting married, Francois? Congratulations!

Post 38

Tuesday, November 19, 2002 - 9:31pm

Thank you Anthony, that was a very entertaining poem. I read it to Alison and she thinks so also. You're really great.

She is an Objectivist, too. We're getting married in January.

Post 39

Wednesday, November 20, 2002 - 7:22am