HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: solan@smauguio.no (Svein Olav G. Nyberg)
Subject: Re: Transcendental argument
Reply-To: solan@smauguio.no (Svein Olav G. Nyberg)
Organization: University of Oslo, Norway
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 16:12:09 GMT

If I understand Spurrett right now, transcendental argument
means that Given (X), (Y) follows transcendentally from (X)
if (Y) is a sufficient condition for (X) to be, and the
conflicting views (Y2) do not imply (X), or rather, imply
non-(X). Yes?

If not, please define transcendental argument carefully for
a person who has not had the nerves to finish Kritik der
Reinen Vernunft yet.

Based on my understanding above, and Spurretts remarks,
(X) is our belief that we have Free Will, and any (Y), to
be acceptable, must explain this. Right?

So, what do you mean when you say "Free Will"? Exact, please.


Regards, Solan
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: tommyjak@solan.unit.no (Tommy Jakobsen)
Subject: free will ?
Organization: Norwegian Institue of Technology
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 92 06:55:36 GMT

free from what ?

God ?
Randomness ?
Determinism ?

What else is there ?
-- 

--------------------------------------------------------
Tommy Jakobsen            |
tommyjak@solan.unit.no    |
tommyjak@idt.unit.no      |
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.classics
From: nwbernst@unix.amherst.edu (Neil Bernstein)
Subject: Re: Plato's Views on Women
Organization: Amherst College
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 04:33:21 GMT

Please take this discussion to one of several relevant newsgroups, i.e.:

	-- soc.feminism (moderated)
	-- alt.feminism (unmoderated)
	-- *.philosophy
	-- alt.flame
	-- soc.women
	-- soc.men

	I haven't seen a single post in the last fifteen which related this
debate to the study of antiquity.  Plato and his views got lost early on.
I'm not saying this topic is unimportant -- far from it! -- but it no longer
belongs in sci.classics.

							Neil Bernstein
						Struggling Classics Major
From: lizi@soda.berkeley.edu (Cosma Shalizi)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Measurement & Precision
Date: 18 Nov 1992 08:33:45 GMT
Organization: Campus Crusade for Cthulhu (Berkeley Tentacle)
NNTP-Posting-Host: soda.berkeley.edu

In article <10292318.57129.2686@kcbbs.gen.nz> Hakki_Kocabas@kcbbs.gen.nz (Hakki Kocabas) writes:
>> In article <1dck8fINNgie@agate.berkeley.edu> lizi@soda.berkeley.edu (Cosma S
>> >In article <1992Nov2.043143.24298@augean.eleceng.adelaide.edu.AU> dabbott@a
>> >>(like the stone age man example did) today when we grapple with such  
>> >>philosophical mysteries as quantum mechanics, mind-body problem,  
>> >>determinism v. free will etc.  
>> There maybe a concept lacking in our vision that that has yet to be found.  
   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I DIDN'T WRITE THIS. I think Derek did. If I did write it, I was so drunk
I don't remember it, and reuse to be held responsible for such drivel.
	Cosma Rohilla Shalizi
	In Real Life: lizi@ocf.berkeley.edu
-- 
"What's the use of being an American citizen if I can't swear when I
damn well want to?" - My mother, while waiting in line in Heathrow
Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago
Date: Monday, 23 Nov 1992 18:05:28 CST
From: <U53846@uicvm.uic.edu>
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Abortion

Hi, would some body please help me for my paper please......
Here is my topic:  Suppose you find out that you are pregnant and there is a 50
-50 chance that due to a genetic defect, your child may be psychologically
disposed to become a sociopath, do you choose to have an abortion?
Males please be little more creative :)  I really need some help on it.  Thanks
and I'm really appreciate any ideas.........

                                                 John
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech,sci.physics,sci.skeptic
From: rdnelson@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger D. Nelson)
Subject: Re: Measurement & Precision
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 21:39:57 GMT

In article <1edlutINNrv8@gap.caltech.edu> carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU writes:
>In article <1992Nov18.021112.13489@augean.eleceng.adelaide.edu.AU>, dabbott@augean.eleceng.adelaide.edu.AU (Derek Abbott) writes:
>=
>=Hmmmmmm, I don't think it's quite as simple as that. The whole measurement
>=technology itself has to be bootstrapped up, measurement standards reinvented
>=etc etc for them to be able to measure the positioning performance of the
>=motor.
>
>Does anybody else find it interesting that here Derek both commits the fallacy
>of his hypothetical troglodyte (if Derek can't figure out how to do it, it's
>impossible) and exhibits the behavior of his hypothetical "extreme skeptic"?

Frankly, no.

Roger

Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech,sci.philosophy.meta.
From: tho@tik.vtt.fi (Timo Honkela)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech,sci.lang,sci.cognitive
Subject: Re: Theories of meaning not relying solely on symbolic representation
Date: 16 Nov 92 00:11:15
Organization: Technical Research Centre of Finland, Laboratory for Information
	Processing (VTT/TIK)
	<1992Nov9.202812.11520@midway.uchicago.edu>
	<0f09W_S00Vpd4DQUlC@andrew.cmu.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: tik.vtt.fi
In-reply-to: "John R. Beer"'s message of Wed, 11 Nov 1992 00:22:18 -0500 

John R. Beer writes:
>Jacob Galley writes:
>>Now I think my original question was not specific enough. What bothers
>>me about the theories of meaning that I have seen is that they do not
>>adequately account for how meaningful symbols are linked to WHAT >THEY
>>MEAN. Ie, while we have made a good amount of progress in syntax and
>>taxonomic classifications, which describe how meaningful signs
>>interact with and relate to each other, I have not encountered any
>>theories of how the signifier is linked to the signified.
>
>You should look at:
>Donald Davidson's writing on truth theory and radical interpretation,
>collected in Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation(1983)
>
>Michael Dummett--start with Truth  and Other Enigmas, which will
>prepare you for his classic paper "What is a Theory of Meaning?", in
>Truth and Meaning ,  (McDowell and Evans,eds.)
>
>The Varieties of Reference by Gareth Evans, which sets out an account
>of what abilities one needs in order to make reference to objects in
>the world.
>
>This stuff is hard going, but immensely rewarding.  Although all three
>authors are firmly in the analytic tradition (and you might want to look
>at Frege and Quine before plunging in), they aren't proposing new
>formalisms, but possible ways for grounding these formalisms.

Connectionistic models with unsupervised learning capabilities
seem to be formalisms or even grounding blocks for "theories of
how the signifier is linked to the signified." Professor Teuvo
Kohonen has written: "In attempting to devise Neural Network
models for linguistic representations, the first difficulty
is encountered when trying to find metric distance relations
between symbolic items. [...] it cannot be assumed that encodings
of symbols in general have any relationship with the observable
characteristics of the corresponding items. How could it then
be possible to represent the 'logical similarity' of pairs
of items [...]? The answer lies in the fact that *the symbol,
during the learning process, is presented in context*."
(The Self-Organizing Map, Proceedings of the IEEE, vol. 78, no 9,
September 1990)

The context may consist of words, symbolic features, continuous
features or even pictorial images. The virtue of unsupervised
learning (e.g. the self-organizing map) lies in the fact
that there is no need for any "correct answers" which is the
case with most of the connectionist models.

Timo Honkela (tho@tik.vtt.fi)
(Please, contact if you are interested in an article
"Connectionism and Linguistics" which e.g. discusses
aspects of semantics and pragmatics related to
unsupervised learning.)

Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
From: frank@Cookie.secapl.com (Frank Adams)
Subject: Re: Popper and Abian and other matters
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 19:00:23 GMT
Organization: Security APL, Inc.

In article <1992Nov17.022553.18928@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au> John Wilkins <john@publications.ccc.monash.edu.au> writes:
>In article <1992Nov10.004237.50028@Cookie.secapl.com> Frank Adams,
>frank@Cookie.secapl.com writes:
>>The main content of evolutionary theory is that *random* mutation is the
>>only input to this process.  So another sense of "survival of the
>fittest"
>>is a negative one: survival of the fittest is the only thing driving
>>evolution.  This would not be true, for example, of Lamarckian evolution.
>
>A point of clarification:
>
>"Recent" evolutionary biology (post-synthetic) admits of several
>different inputs to evolution: drift, non-genetic heredity, and so forth.

I am aware of these; the original comment was directed more at "Darwinian"
evolution (which is where the slogan "survival of the fittest" comes from).

>I think the point is that the variation that results has to be random
>with respect to the selection pressures active on a population (is that
>the point of your scare quotes?)

That is probably a better statement of it that I would have managed to come
up with.

---------------
A point I have never seen dealt with (which does not mean no one *has* dealt
with it) is that "random", by itself, is not well defined.  You have to
specify a distribution.  An evolution based on an entirely different genetic
substrate (even something as simple as using a different molecule than DNA)
would probably produce a qualitatively different evolution -- that is, given
an evolutionary history based on one or the other, one could tell which it
was based on without directly examining the genetic mechanism.
Organization: Sophomore, Math/Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech,sci.lang,sci.cognitive
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 07:43:27 -0500 
From: Franklin Chang <fc0v+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Neuropsychology grad schools?

Does anyone know if there is a FAQ(or other list) somewhere that lists
the grad schools that specialize in those degrees that are a combination
of biology and psychology.
    Cognitive Neuropsychology
    Neurologically based Computer Models. 

Frank
fc0v@andrew.cmu.edu
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
From: shaman@cix.compulink.co.uk (Leo Smith)
Subject: Andrea Nye
Reply-To: shaman@cix.compulink.co.uk
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 23:35:00 +0000

mutation@dorsai.com (Florian Lengyel) writes..

>: mikhail zeleny@husc.harvard.edu
>: "Desperate, lonely, cut off from the human community which in many cases
>: has ceased to exist, under the sentence of violent death, wracked by
>: desires for intimacy that they do not know how to fulfill, at the same time
>: tormented by the presence of women, men turn to logic."  -- Andrea Nye

Wow. Torrid stuff. Well she should know I suppose.....Hey is there
any more where that came from? Truth Through Passion I trow. More
like Poetry than Philosophy tho isn't it?

I seem to remember that it was the women who stayed behind that
wanted their Boys to Die Gloriously in the first world war. Andrea
sounds like she is definitely in the Rupert Brooke rather than the
Wilfrid Owen camp.

Wrong but Wromantic


Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
From: brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder)
Subject: Re: Rights
Organization: Quake Public Access
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 04:58:07 GMT

In article <1992Nov16.092859.1@woods.ulowell.edu> cotera@woods.ulowell.edu writes:
>No one is born with inherient rights.  Rights are given solely by the
>government.

Do you consider that to be some kind of argument?

Tell me.  Do you consider that certain arrangements of soil, water, and
seeds generate results more beneficial to the plants than others?  

If so, do you think that this derives from the inherent nature of the 
plants, soil, and water, or is it just the result of some government
edict from the Agriculture department?  In other words, would you
say that if hte Agriculture department published a document stating that
the proper wat of planting seeds was to bury them all in one place 6 feet
under ground, it would therefore be the right way to do it?

When I say that human beings have rights as a matter of brute fact beyond
the choice of government or social consensus, I mean it in that sense.
The government can be wrong about how human beings should order their
lives just as it can be wrong with regard to the planting of corn.

--Brian

Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
From: brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder)
Subject: Re: Plato's Views on Women
Keywords: Plato, politics, women, feminism
Organization: Quake Public Access
Distribution: na
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 03:46:40 GMT

In article <1992Nov11.160627.14364@galileo.physics.arizona.edu> lnh@soliton.physics.arizona.edu (sometimes a Wombat) writes:
>brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>> many people wrote:
>>>> the answers to philosophical questions are matters of objective fact
 
>>> Sometimes, they are matter of *subjective* fact. Do you have feelings?
 
>> I completely disagree.  Do you think that the proper answers to any
>> philosphical questions ought to be derived from feelings?  What's so
>> subjective (in the factual vs. arbitrary sense) about feelings anyway?
 
>> Could you give an example of this principle?

>Religious conversion.

It is no such thing.  Whether or not one has been converted is a matter
of objective fact.  It's either true or it isn't and there are ways of 
determining which.  Whether religious beliefs (such as the existence of 
God for example) are either true or they are not.  Either God created
the universe or he didn't.  Either you go to heaven when you die or you
don't.  None of these are in any sense "subjective facts".

>Granted that the answer won't be accepted by others, but it is very
>often sufficient proof for the converted of the existence of
>deity(ies).

Some people are convinced of all kinds of different things for faulty
reasons.  The fact that some people consider religious revelation to
be a proper epistemological method does not make it so.

--Brian

Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
From: sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com (Gary Merrill)
Subject: Re: Platos views on women
Originator: sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 18:15:27 GMT
Distribution: inet
Organization: SAS Institute Inc.


In article <1eghvsINN113@uwm.edu>, hiho@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Mark Peterson) writes:
|> From article <BxyvvE.C41@unx.sas.com>, by sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com (Gary Merrill):
|> > 
|> > In article <memo.758259@cix.compulink.co.uk>, shaman@cix.compulink.co.uk (Leo Smith) writes:
|> > 
|> > |> Agreed. Also agreed that the trauma of bereavement, of childbirth, of
|> > |> war, of almost any major key experience of an individual gives deep
|> > |> philosophical insight.
|> 
|> [...]
|> 
|> > in any way as deep philosophical insight.  I think that whatever
|> > deep philosophical insight is, it results from deep and rather intense
|> > *study* rather than from an emotional reaction to experience.
|> 
|> 
|> Hmm.  Tricky.  My immediate reaction is to agree with you here Gary.
|> But if all knowledge begins with experience....  
|> 

Yeah, but my wife's *horses* have *experience*.  I'm pretty sure they
lack *knowledge*, and I'm certain that they lack deep philosophical
insight.  Experience is a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition
for insight.  The key phrase is "begins with".  The horses never get
any further than this.
-- 
Gary H. Merrill  [Principal Systems Developer, C Compiler Development]
SAS Institute Inc. / SAS Campus Dr. / Cary, NC  27513 / (919) 677-8000
sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com ... !mcnc!sas!sasghm
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
From: sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com (Gary Merrill)
Subject: Re: Rights
Originator: sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 15:37:19 GMT
Organization: SAS Institute Inc.


In article <1992Nov20.112003.1977@panix.com>, jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb) writes:

|> Is the implication that neither people who discuss things on National
|> Public Radio nor the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction
|> are in the mainstream of our political system?  If they're excluded,
|> who's in it?

Actually, I did not mean to imply that.  But since you raise the question,
I do not believe that people who discuss things on NPR are in the mainstream
of anything except NPR.  As for the NC Dept. of Public Instruction,
I would not presume to use the time and space necessary to describe to
you the current state of this organization.  As an example, however,
consider that my review of their proposal (for federal money, of course)
contained (among other things) about four pages of comments pointing out
the many errors in grammar, punctuation, and style that littered the
proposal -- often making their prose unintelligible or resulting in
assertions that were not intended.  For instance, their central "Statement
of Purpose" is a single sentence, five and one half full lines in length,
with a misplaced modifier that renders it laughable.  Are the "professional
educators" who authored this stuff in the mainstream of our political
system?  I'm afraid they are.

|> As to official positions of American liberalism and conservatism, I
|> don't think such things exist.  Whatever may have been the case in
|> 1787, rigorous thought about politics or anything else is not now one
|> of our national characteristics.

I don't think it was ever one of our *national* characteristics.  But
it seems that there was a time when the guys running the show had *some*
brain cells.
-- 
Gary H. Merrill  [Principal Systems Developer, C Compiler Development]
SAS Institute Inc. / SAS Campus Dr. / Cary, NC  27513 / (919) 677-8000
sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com ... !mcnc!sas!sasghm
From: miner@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
Subject: Re: RF more D: talk.philosophy.objectivism
Date: 17 Nov 92 02:27:54 GMT
Article-I.D.: kuhub.1992Nov16.202755.44855
Organization: University of Kansas Academic Computing Services

I cast my vote for talk.philosophy.objectivism.

Since I would much prefer to hear what the objectivists have to say to
each other and what kinds of things they argue about (I haven't seen
the name David Kelly yet ;), rather than slog through endless baiting
and flaming, I'd prefer a moderated group in principle.

On the other hand, a lot depends on the moderator.
Soc.religion.christian is the only moderated group I've had experience
with, and its moderator is so fair-minded he lets almost everything
on...

So while I believe in moderation :) I think it should select for
_the group_.  There are plenty of newsgroups for inter-ideological
warfare.
-- 
-Ken <miner@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> {Sometimes you have to look reality straight
 OPINIONS ARE MY OWN            {in the eye, and deny it. - G. Keillor 
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
From: shaman@cix.compulink.co.uk (Leo Smith)
Subject: %Re: Ayn Rand and the job market (Ex Plato/fem etc)
Reply-To: shaman@cix.compulink.co.uk
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 22:25:00 +0000

RGINZBERG@eagle.wesleyan.edu (Ruth Ginzberg) writes..


>Oh, puh-leaze, Gary! Do you know *ANYONE* who has gone on the job
>market as an Ayn Rand specialist & gotten a job of *any* description
>in an academic philosophy department?

Is this positive or negative discrimination tho?

:-)

Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
From: holmes@garnet.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes)
Subject: Re: Extensionalism (was re: Russell's Paradox)
Organization: Boise State University
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 16:20:34 GMT

In article <1992Nov16.220925.28271@tamsun.tamu.edu> cmenzel@tamsun.tamu.edu (Chris Menzel) writes:
>In article <1992Nov15.215724.21897@guinness.idbsu.edu> holmes@garnet.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes) writes:
>>>>RH:
>>>>_Contra_ Harter (miscellaneous quibbles):
>>>>
>>>>The Good Russell may have admitted the possibility of "intensions",
>>>>but the Exalted Quine has liberated us from the influence of those
>>>>"creatures of darkness".  Extensions are adequate for all admissable
>>>>purposes.
>>>>
>>>CM:
>>>Really, Randall?!  Could you then please give me an extensional
>>>analysis of the sentences in the following arguments that explains why
>>>the first is valid but the second is not:
>>>
>>>1)  John believes there are spies.
>>>    Mary believes whatever John does.
>>>    Therefore, Mary believes there are spies.
>>>
>>>2)  John believes that 2+3=5.
>>>    Necessarily, 2+3=5 iff first-order logic is undecidable.
>>>    Therefore, John believes that first-order logic is undecidable.
>>>
>>>Or is a purpose admissible just in case it is amenable to
>>>extensionalist analysis?
>
>[Florian's response and lengthy intensional response in which
>that-clauses are takent to denote propositions deleted.]
>
>>But the extensionalist does have a simple recourse; let proposition =
>>sentence throughout.
>
>But *surely* this won't work; nothing in the first argument, for
>example, presupposes that John and Mary even speak the same language.
>But under those conditions that argument (or perhaps a similar one
>where the beliefs under consideration don't include beliefs about
>language) could still have true premises (hence a true conclusion as
>well).
>
>Not to mention problems with ambiguity, anaphora, etc. that aren't
>resolved at the level of sentences.
>
>--Chris Menzel

I would then start talking about sentences in different languages and
translation.  If Mary speaks German but not English and believes that
it will rain, then Mary believes a sentence in German which translates
to a sentence in English which asserts that it will rain.  Ambiguity
and anaphora are taken into account by considering the effects on
context on the interpretation of sentences, etc.  It is a truly
horrible program, but nothing is added to it by adding intensional
objects (as a new kind of object; now there is a good case for
constructing "intensional objects" by extensional techniques from
sentences).


-- 
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
From: hiho@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Mark Peterson)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
Subject: Re: Platos views on women
Date: 19 Nov 1992 17:13:32 GMT
Organization: University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
Distribution: inet
Reply-To: hiho@csd4.csd.uwm.edu
NNTP-Posting-Host: 129.89.7.4
Originator: hiho@csd4.csd.uwm.edu

From article <BxyvvE.C41@unx.sas.com>, by sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com (Gary Merrill):
> 
> In article <memo.758259@cix.compulink.co.uk>, shaman@cix.compulink.co.uk (Leo Smith) writes:
> 
> |> Agreed. Also agreed that the trauma of bereavement, of childbirth, of
> |> war, of almost any major key experience of an individual gives deep
> |> philosophical insight.

[...]

> in any way as deep philosophical insight.  I think that whatever
> deep philosophical insight is, it results from deep and rather intense
> *study* rather than from an emotional reaction to experience.


Hmm.  Tricky.  My immediate reaction is to agree with you here Gary.
But if all knowledge begins with experience....  


hiho
-- 
mark ce peterson   | uw-washington county  | hiho@csd4.csd.uwm.edu 
dept of philosophy | west bend, wi.  53095 | (414) 335-5200        

     The shorter the tether, the sooner the goat starves.
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
Subject: Re: Wittgenstein, P.I.
From: Hakki_Kocabas@kcbbs.gen.nz (Hakki Kocabas)
Date: 23 Nov 92 14:06:11 GMT
Organization: Kappa Crucis Unix BBS, Auckland, New Zealand

"Philosophical investigations: conceptual investigations. The essencial 
thing about metaphysics: it obliterates the distinction between factual 
and conceptual investigations." Wittgenstein.

Can some-one supply the german original of this remark, please.
Thanks.
viele Danke
tesekkurler
mercy 

|-| /-\ |-< |-< |||