HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos)
Subject: Re: Law of Causality
Organization: USC  Department of Computer Science
Date:  4 Nov 92 20:38:06 GMT

In <1992Oct29.180903.3088@guinness.idbsu.edu> holmes@garnet.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes) writes:

>In article <1992Oct28.204337.11374@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass) writes:
>>In article <nyikos.720043946@milo.math.scarolina.edu> nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos) writes:

>[...]
>>>
>>>That makes no difference.  My point was that quantum-magnitude
>>>perturbations *might* lead, whether by stricly causal methods or otherwise,
>>>to grossly observable changes.  The perturbations themselves, on the
>>>other hand, could at least in theory take the form of "choosing" between
>>>two or more *possible* outcomes of the same physical state of affairs.
>>>The upshot is that a non-physical soul (assuming, for the sake of argument,
>>>that such things exist) could act on a body without this action being
>>>detectable *even in theory*, yet make a big difference on how that body
>>>goes through life.

>Ridiculous.  The actions of the soul would NOT be random, so would be
>observable, so would violate QM.

As one mathematician to another, let me point out to you that "random"
has many different meanings, and the intuitive layman's idea cannot even
be given a rigorous mathematical definition.  

Which would you say is more random: a coin in which the ratio of heads
to tails by toss n  converges to 1/2 as  n  goes to infinity, or one
in which the set of limit points of the sequence is all of [0, 1] ?
Mathematicians and statisticians gravitate towards the first kind of
definition purely and simply because this choice gives rise to a never-ending
stream of new definitions, theorems, articles, books, grants, and positions,
while the latter family of concepts is not so fruitful.  

Does the quantum world really conform to the nice statistical picture that
seems to be implicit in your claim, or might it not include elements of
the second kind of randomness, to which I would give the name "wildness"?
And if the latter, do you really maintain that the action of a soul--again
assuming, for the sake of argument, that such things exist--would still
be detectable?

Peter Nyikos

Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: jones@ils.nwu.edu
Subject: New Ph.D. Program
Organization: institute for the learning sciences
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 20:23:50 GMT

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Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: torkel@sics.se (Torkel Franzen)
Subject: Re: Not Thing
Organization: Swedish Institute of Computer Science, Kista
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 11:39:36 GMT

In article <1992Nov8.022211.4055@wixer.cactus.org> sparky@wixer.cactus.org
 (Timothy Sheridan) writes:

 >.......Does anyone get this?

  Get what? Your reflection

  >if we say there is an X and "X is never true" then it would seem

is somewhat lacking in clarity, since it is not obvious that there is any
substitution for "X" that produces an intelligible sentence. You suggest
"if nothingness is X", but neither "there is a nothingness" nor "nothing-
ness is never true" means anything in ordinary English.
From: rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert)
Subject: Re: DETERMINISM 1: `Refutation' the first
Organization: Northern Illinois University
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 19:14:46 GMT

In article <spurrett.23.720960465@superbowl.und.ac.za> spurrett@superbowl.und.ac.za (David Spurrett) writes:
>DETERMINISM 1: `Refutation' number one.

>    The argument  starts from  a factual  observation.   Our legal  systems
>  (this is not  a modern Western  point, it seems  universal) acknowledge a
>  distinction between  `do-ers' and  `do-ees' in  a fundamental  and strong
>  way.

The legal system is designed by people with the intention that it will
affect the behavior of people.  You cannot use it to draw conclusions
about inanimate objects.  The legal system is an expression of our
culture, so cannot easily be applied to questions such as the validity
of determinism.

>        For example when one  person pushes another over a cliff  we direct
>  our criticism/ revenge/ abuse/ rehabilitation/ whatever at the person who
>  `did' the pushing.  Some archaic legal systems had different economies of
>  `do-ers' and, for example, tried crows for crop damage.  NO LEGAL  SYSTEM
>  HAS EVER `TRIED' A LAW OF NATURE, OR A MECHANICAL DEVICE.

This is simply not true.  Mechanical devices are sometimes subjected to
scientific and engineering tests, and the results of these tests are
brought to a court for decision.  The decision might, in effect, be a
judgment of summary execution (perhaps in the form of a product recall).
Certainly the treatment of mechanical devices is different, but this is
because mechanical devices are presumed not to have free will, and thus
unable to change their behavior.

>    An  analysis  of  the  workings  of  the proceedings shows that what is
>  presupposed of a `doer', what  defines him/her is that there  is believed
>  to be someting like a `possibility for having done otherwise.'  (ie  Free
>  Will)   Indeed if  it is  possible to  prove that  the person who did the

You seem to be arguing that "based on a presupposition that inanimate
objects do not have free will, we conclude that determism is false."
This does not strike me as valid reasoning.

Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.classics
From: rooney@cheshire.oxy.edu (Michael Sean Rooney)
Subject: Re: Plato's Views on Women
Keywords: politics, women, feminism
Organization: Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA 90041 USA.
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 21:06:24 GMT

In article <BxK1zu.93q@unx.sas.com> sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com (Gary Merrill) writes:
>
>In article <1992Nov11.010102.14565@cheshire.oxy.edu>, rooney@cheshire.oxy.edu (Michael Sean Rooney) writes:
>
>|> 	Secondly, you seem to be implicitly claiming that a true
>|> philosophy worthy of the name should be politically neutral, equally
>|> acceptable to both followers of Rand and Marx.  This foolishness
>|> merely betrays the ethically irresponsible legacy of Wittgenstein's
>|> disconnection of transcendental philosophy from the world. [1]  
>|> That feminism seeks some connections between thought and practice
>|> is no vice.
>
>"Ethically irresponsible legacy of Wittgenstein's disconnection of
>trancendental philosophy from the world"?  Well, I guess that ices
>the cake. I did not, by the way, claim that a true philosophy worthy
>of the name (whatever that means) should be politically neutral.
>I posed a question concerning how *uniform* the political philosophy
>of so-called "feminist philosophy" is and how *central* a given
>perspective seems to be.  The implicit question, of course, is
>what comes first:  a committment to a particular philosophy for which
>one then concocts a new discipline to serve as a vehicle of expression,
>or the genuine identification of a new discipline and the discovery
>that virtually all of its acolytes happen to cleave to a particular
>political philosophy.
>

	Regardless of "what comes first" (either an abstract metaphysical
position or a practical political disposition), it is the arguments of the
philosophies in question which matter.  Obviously, assuming a political 
stance ad hoc (say, libertarian capitalism) and then detailing "down" to
metaphysical stands increases the possibility of incoherence considerably
(cf. the pontifex minimus Leonard Peikoff).  But this does not have to be 
the case.  The "genuine identification of a new discipline" (whatever that
means) need not proceed from pre-political considerations.  It is the
positions and arguments that are central, items which seem anathema to
the anti-feminist-philosophy posters on this thread.

Cordially,

Michael S. Rooney
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.classics
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Subject: Re: Plato's Views on Women
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 03:20:37 GMT
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Keywords: politics, women, feminism

In <1992Nov11.210624.15383@cheshire.oxy.edu> rooney@cheshire.oxy.edu (Michael Sean Rooney) writes:

>It is the
>positions and arguments that are central, items which seem anathema to
>the anti-feminist-philosophy posters on this thread.

It might focus the discussion if someone would expound and defend a
philosophical position on an issue with no obvious immediate social or
political implications (something relating to logic or epistemology,
say) that is distinctively feminist.  I'm not claiming the burden of
proof is on the defenders of feminist philosophy, only that it might
advance things if we all could see an example of what's being
discussed.
-- 
Jim Kalb 		"Not drunk is he who from the floor
(jk@panix.com)		 can rise alone and still drink more.
			 But drunk is he who prostrate lies
			 Without the power to drink or rise." (Clough)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: holmes@garnet.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes)
Subject: Re: The "validity" of feminist philosophy
Organization: Boise State University
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 16:58:22 GMT

In article <1992Nov9.183535.17268@husc3.harvard.edu> mcrae@husc8.harvard.edu writes:
>In article <BxG75H.33@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>, jwales@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (jimmy donal wales) writes:
>>>Well, there are a lot of people working in feminist epistemology and
>>>feminist ethics, so I think the onus is on you (at the beginning) to offer
>>>some reason for thinking that what they're doing isn't worthwhile.
>> 
>> This is my first contribution to this particular thread, and I begin
>> with a confession of ignorance.  I have no idea at all what 'feminist
>> epistemology' would consist of.
>>  [...]
>> But feminist _epistemology_?  I honestly confess that I have no idea what
>> such a field would study, or why.
>> 
>> So, in this case, I think that the onus is on those _doing_ this kind of
>> work to explain to us what it is and why they think it is worthwhile.
>
>Agreed 100% -- but there are two different things being confused here. I
>agree that people working in a field bear, in general, the primary
>responsibility for explaining what they're doing and why it's worthwhile.
>But if someone comes up and tells me that some field in which lots of
>people are working is actually a waste of time, or "invalid" (I wish I
>knew what that meant) or whatever, then I think the onus is on that person
>to give me some reason to believe them. There are all kinds of reasons
>they might give (a good one would be "The people in this field have never
>made any effort to explain exactly what it is they're doing and why it's
>important") but if they don't give any good reason at all, I'm not going
>to take them seriously.
>
>Andrew.
>-- 
>Andrew McRae                       Internet: mcrae@husc.harvard.edu
>                                     BITnet: mcrae@HUSC

Except in extreme cases.  Feminist epistemology is absurd, unless one
believes in "woman's intuition".  The ways in which people know things
do not depend on their gender in any _philosophically_ relevant way.


-- 
The opinions expressed		|     --Sincerely,
above are not the "official"	|     M. Randall Holmes
opinions of any person		|     Math. Dept., Boise State Univ.
or institution.			|     holmes@opal.idbsu.edu
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough)
Subject: Re: QM and Free Will
Organization: ORA Corporation
Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1992 15:53:42 GMT

The way I understand Penrose, his argument takes the form:

     Suppose that human reasoning about arithmetic is captured exactly
     by some formal system T. This means that any statement of
     arithmetic that human mathematicians can come to know is true
     is provable by T, and that T uses only methods of reasoning
     (inference rules, axioms, etc.) that humans believe to be valid.

     Then, since the basic mathematical principles humans use are
     simple, clear, and obviously true, we could then study theory T
     and see that it only generates true statements. Therefore, we
     conclude that T is consistent (a false theory can be consistent,
     but a true theory can't be inconsistent). Then, by Godel's
     theorem, we can produce an arithmetic statement G(T) such that
     (1) is true, and (2) cannot be proved by T. Since we have just
     convinced ourselves that G(T) is true, and T cannot prove G(T),
     that implies that T does *not* capture all of our reasoning about
     arithmetic. Contradiction. Therefore, there is no such T.

First of all, this argument doesn't show that human reasoning is more
powerful than formal reasoning, at all. It shows that human reasoning
is more powerful than any formal reasoning that we can see is clearly
valid. Penrose' argument cannot be used, for instance, to show that NF
(Quine's New Foundations, an alternative set theory) fails to capture
all of human reasoning about arithmetic. We could get to the
construction of G(NF), the Godel statement for NF, and then we would
be stuck; if NF is consistent, then G(NF) is true but unprovable from
NF, but we are (so far, anyway) unable to prove that NF is consistent.
So while NF may be unable to prove G(NF), neither can we.

Therefore, Penrose' claim is reduced from the boast "Human reasoning
is more powerful than any consistent formal system" to the much more
modest "Human reasoning is more powerful than any system that human
reasoning can prove is consistent". This modest claim is just as true
if you replace "human reasoning" by "reasoning within PA" or
"reasoning within ZFC", or any other formal system. Not a very
convincing argument that human reasoning is not algorithmic.

Daryl McCullough
ORA Corp.
Ithaca, NY
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: frank@Cookie.secapl.com (Frank Adams)
Subject: Re: Dualism
Date: Mon, 09 Nov 1992 23:51:39 GMT
Organization: Security APL, Inc.

In article <1992Oct29.135623.11557@oracorp.com> daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough) writes:
>I will agree that *given* an abstraction function, and *given* a
>decomposition of a system into parts, then it may be possible to say,
>objectively, whether the system with that decomposition and that
>abstraction function has a certain functional organization.  However,
>the choice of abstraction function and decomposition are not
>objective, and can be done in more than one way.

It seems to me that when talk about a "system", rather than an "object",
there is already implicitly a functional organization specified.

I will agree that you can't talk about the functional organization of an
object without identifying it as a particular system.  I don't think there
are, at this point, any fundamental (i.e., philosophical) problems in doing
this for human beings as thinking entities, although the practical (i.e.,
scientific) problems are very considerable.
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough)
Subject: Re: Dualism
Organization: ORA Corporation
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 23:19:47 GMT

In article <7891@skye.ed.ac.uk>, jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
writes:

>>Agreed. But the judging intelligence (and other mental properties)
>>based on behavioral evidence is about as justified as any fallible
>>test can be.

>I disagree. Moreover, I have yet to see anything even approaching
>a reasonable justification for it.

I don't think that there can be a justification that would convince
you, but for me it is pragmatic; I don't see any purpose whatsoever in
distinguishing between "conscious, intelligent beings" and "beings
that always behave as if conscious and intelligent". Furthermore, I
have not seen any argument whatsoever that would make believe that
there is a difference.

Daryl McCullough
ORA Corp.
Ithaca, NY 

Xref: sparky sci.philosophy.tech:4019 talk.philosophy.misc:2385 talk.religion.misc:20802
From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech,talk.philosophy.misc,talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: QM and Free Will
Date: 10 Nov 92 17:54:16 GMT
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland

In article <27811@castle.ed.ac.uk> cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) writes:
>Contrary to the presumption of many posters, there is no necessary
>connection between lack of free and determinism, or free will and lack
>of determinism. It would help if posters who wish to presume one or
>both of these would spend a little time elaborating some decent
>supporting arguments.

Look in 

  Gary Watson (ed), _Free Will_, Oxford University Press, for
  arguments for both points.

  Dennett, _Elbow Room_, for arguments that free will is compatible
  with determinism.

  Van Inwagen, _An Essay on Free Will_ for arguments that it is
  not.

  (Dennett and van Inwagen are included in Watson.)

There are others that I can't think of off the top of my head.
Compatiblism seems fairly prevalent these days, and it denies
the presumptions you mention above, but it is not universally
accepted.

-- jd
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: oz@ursa.sis.yorku.ca (Ozan Yigit)
Subject: Re: Dualism
Organization: York U. Student Information Systems Project
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 15:04:59 GMT

Jeff Dalton responds to McCullough:

   But if so you ought to start agreeing with me against the TT.

What is he supposed to agree with? That TT is "behaviourism" and
of course it does not take more than five minutes to refute that
and so TT is worthless?

Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech,talk.philosophy.misc,talk.religion.misc
From: jcc@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Jeremy Caplan)
Subject: Re: Algorithmic Thought? (was re: QM and Free Will)
Organization: Northwestern University, Evanston Illinois.
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 04:52:50 GMT

Will SOMEBODY make a talk.philosophy.objectivism???

Jer
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech,talk.philosophy.misc,talk.religion.misc
From: nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos)
Subject: Re: QM and Free Will
Organization: USC  Department of Computer Science
Date:  4 Nov 92 22:34:52 GMT

In <1992Nov2.020038.19948@guinness.idbsu.edu> holmes@garnet.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes) writes:

>In article <1992Nov1.102609.13247@black.ox.ac.uk> microsoc@black.ox.ac.uk (Microsoc) writes:
>>On Free will vs determinism...
>>
>>What do you netters think about Lucas' argument (which has been pinched by
>>Penrose now and will appear in his forthcoming book)? Put baldly it is:
>>
>>1.	We can do higher mathematics, therefore
>>2.	We have free will.
>>
>>Penrose argues to (2.	Artificial intelligence is impossible given current
>>conceptions of "computability")
>>
>>The bare bones of the argument (I can't do it justice in the time I have
>>acailable here  <-- excuse typo, my editor is broken) are that we can apply
>>a Go"del type arguemtn. It can be shown (fairly conclusively, at least
>>prima facie) that IF we do math by means of an algorithm THEN that algorithm
>>cannot be knowable,

>to us, certainly.

> otherwise we can construct a Stopping (sorry, Halting)
>>paradox a` la Turing. The point is that in doing math we can disprove
>>ceratin (whoops) putative theories (theorems, even - sheesh, my typing isbad
>>today) WITHOUT recourse to a computable (decidable, causal)
>algorithm.

>There is no reason to believe we do not use an algorithm; we just
>don't know what it is.

>>
>>Sorry this is so short - if there is sufficient demand I'll put the argument
>>in a little more detail when my )(*!@#$%^*&( editor is working properly again.
>>
>>Marc Read

>These arguments are unsound.

In such short form, yes, but could it be that Penrose has a much more elaborate
theory that might survive even your scrutiny?  I have not read his
arguments; have you?

>P.S.  I am a professional mathematical logician; I know exactly what
>Godel's Theorem says, and it does not prove that we have free will or
>can prove things non-algorithmically, nor does it disprove the
>possibility of AI.

I have some expertise in mathematical logic, being a set-theoretic
topologist.  We work all the time with axioms that are independent
of the usual "self-evident" ones like the axiom of choice.

[This is the axiom that for each collection of disjoint non-empty
sets, there is a set which intersects each member of the collection
in a single-element set.]

  But
occasionally we come across axioms that seem *almost* self-evident,
and we also have a strong intuition for the *consistency* of various
axioms ["large cardinal axioms"].   

Now, where do these intuitions come from, if we are *only* the
concatenation of atoms blindly following physical laws?  I admit
this is not exactly the same argument as the abbreviated Penrose
argument you see above, but it comes from the same deep wellsprings,
and fuels the speculation that there is more to our world than just
the scientifically explainable phenomena.

Peter Nyikos

Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech