Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
From: shaman@cix.compulink.co.uk (Leo Smith)
Subject: Re: Having to believe
Reply-To: shaman@cix.compulink.co.uk
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 21:17:00 +0000

sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com (Gary Merrill) writes ...


>In article <memo.540399@cix.compulink.co.uk>, shaman@cix.compulink.co.uk (Leo Smith)
 writes:

>|> Well right and wrong imply value judgement. So our anti realist has
>|> assumed

>Someday I would like someone to give a reasonably precise account of
>what a "value judgement" is and how it can be distinguished from
>other sorts of judgements (apparently devoid of value or not based on
>value?). Then I would like it to be shown why such imputations of
>"value judgements" are always offered with the implication (or
>outright claim) that it is somehow "bad" or "unreasonable" to make
>such judgements.

Whoah there Gary! Remember in this arena I am NOT trying to win
arguments...(unlike some possibly) I am trying to whittle down
philosophical systems to their bare bones if you like, to find in
each the 'key assumption' if there is one, or the facts on which they
claim to be based. In other words there ought (in my theory) to be a
way to reduce any worldview to some basic set of assumptions: In the
case of anti-realism these were the two criteria I cited - the
assumption of a separate reality, and the assumption that there was
some way of distinguishing 'good' models from 'bad' models. For
example Randall has said a couple of times that science is good
because essentially - (and forgive me if I don't get the subtle
nuances right here Randall) it gives power of the reality it
describes, and is useful to prolong life and increase material
living standards.

I don't know what else to call that except a value judgement: Hey - I
get it from both sides - the academics think I am a lunatic new-ager,
and the New Agers think I'm a reactionary scientist, probably a
closet heterosexual at least - if not a raving Nazi :-)

Anyway, I am trying to get (and with your help, amongst others, am
basically succeeding) in getting a fairly broad map of the
philosophical territory I want to know about.

>(Isn't such a claim a value judgement itself? But I digress.) I'm not
>suggesting that we get into this hairball in this thread, but every
>once in a while someone will respond to something with "That's a
>value judgement," as though this is some kind of conversation
>stopper, counter argument, or counterexample.

That was NOT my intention: Remember I am NOT a logician. To me, value
judgements are valid.  The warm light of value judgement is as
interesting as the cold light of reason.


|>
|>                (i) A separate reality
|>                (ii) selection criteria for his worldview
|> 
|> before he gets on with the task of having such.  Are these necessary
|> preconditions?
|> 
|> 
|> 

>Not to answer these questions directly (as though I *could* provide
>especially lucid answers), but instead ...

>Stumbling about the UNC bookstore this weekend I came across a
>relatively recent book of Van Fraassen's entitled _Laws_and_Symmetry_
>which appears to be a rather complete treatment of most of the topics
>raised in this thread (from his anti-realist perspective). The
>publication date was 1989. The book deals with the fundamental
>questions raised by Leo in (i) and (ii)...

...Great....

>.... and goes into great detail....

Shit: I am just running out of TIME!!! :-)

>in terms of specific examples drawn form the sciences and views of
>other philosophers of science. I haven't read it yet, but since Bas's
>intuitions and mine always seemed to be pretty much in synch I expect
>I will agree with most of it. Regardless of such agreement or
>disagreement, however, I think it likely that those interested in the
>topics we have been fooling with would benefit from looking at it.

Gary: I think that I will try and summarise MY position as briefly as
I can, and invite your comments, and comments from others too. This
is about 300 lines so hit those skip buttons NOW!
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Proposition I
=============

Every one of us when we engage in almost any conscious activity make
at many levels and at many times a series of ad hoc assumptions which
are neccessary preconditions for the activities we do.

The assumptions are both DESCRIPTIVE - i.e. we assume boundaries
between things, in the broadest senses, RELATIONAL - i.e. we assume
laws and causes are reasonable ways for things to behave and
VALUATIONAL - i.e that for us at least, some innate sense of choice
and better and worse exist.

I don't think I have done any more with that than describe normal
human behaviour.


Proposition II
==============

The 'necessary preconditions' cited above, become in nearly all of us
nearly all of the time, rigid 'facts' which are 'felt' to have 'a
priori' status. e.g. 'Of course physical reality exists, its what you
stub your toe against dummy! You can't argue with FACTS :-)'

A corollary of this is that belief becomes dogma. Credo becomes Est.
The internal structure is EXTERNALIZED. This also explains why people
are so intensely threatened by anything which challenges those very
core assumptions. Literally, their worlds are at stake :-(


Propsition III
==============

This is where I am having difficulty formulating the words.. Here
goes nothing.

Having possible accepted propositions I & II which together are not
_inconsistent_ (I hope) with the anti-realist approach, although I
feel their scope is potentially greater, I would suggest, without
supporting arguments, that these 'worldviews' - stable externalised
arrangements of experience containing order and rules - have some
properties that can be talked about.

        (a) Some are more stable than others. A view such as the
        current scientific one, in which many elements reinforce many
        other elements, which consists of many immutables and yet has
        many degrees of freedom, provides an extraordinary stability.
        Other worldviews which are more inherently self contradictory
        (reductio ad absurdum: Cheese is made of Not-Cheese) are less
        stable. By stable I mean exhibit longevity.

        (b) All must contain at the very least an unprovable
        assertion (the original assumptions or axioms, or a transform
        thereof). In the case of modern philosophical thinking I have
        been trying to probe for that very axiom set. They may
        (possibly must) also contain a Godelian-like paradox.
        Certainly there will be recursive territory where the nature
        of the original assumption will make some conclusions suspect
        or invalid. In the case of the normal worldview, we started
        our physics with mechanics - the description of lumps of
        solid matter in space time, but we end by denying that
        'matter' has any definite existence in space time. Instead
        we have probabilistic interactions between energy states, and
        a curious interaction with the observer. This is consistent
        with the fact that the observer is a hidden assumption in the
        original worldview that mechanics and physics starts with.

        (Note for any coyote sorcerers out there: Compare with the
        concept of the 'key joint' as the place to affect any system
        :-))

        (c) Any value judgement that may be applied to such a
        worldview (e.g. It is better to believe in Physics than
        Astrology) must essentially either be a prime assumption
        (e.g. 'because I feel it to be so') or an externalization of
        a primary assumption (e.g. 'Because it WORKS' which is the
        externalization of the assumption that utility in PREDICTION
        is the most important part of any descriptive structure).

Moving on, I would suggest that within this broadly defined territory
- maps of experience - as Metzner once described such systems, some
other pieces of 'knowledge' and experience can be fitted in quite
easily.

Proposition IV
==============

Kuhnian 'Paradigm shift' is an externalization of a process, which if
understood internally is actually the mystical or religious
experience. The degree is dissimilar, but the experiences are in the
same class. Before you leap to disagree, what I am saying is that the
meta-physics or meta-mysticism that I am describing PLACES these
experiences together by virtue of IT'S innate assumptions (of course
it has some. I'll get to them in a minute). By redefining the axes
they become aspects of the same thing. I am not going to support this
statement other than to say that the key thing is that both involve
real modifications to the 'worldview' structures.

The extent to which this is felt as an actual shift in reality is
dictated by the general level of externalization. The histories of
Galileo, of Einstein, of the Copenhagen movement, and of such figures
as Buddha and so on provide interesting insights in these respects.


Proposition V
=============

The practical ways of modification of worldviews have been known and
understood by a few people in any given generation for a long long
time. In any given age there are those who are de-facto in charge of
the ordering of the externalised consensus model: Today these are the
scientists and the philosophers in our Western model. Hi there :-) In
previous ages the monks and scribes performed those functions: The
mundane side of the Christian church in fact was largely responsible
for interpreting what was reality, or as I would see it, in laying
down the axioms.


There are also those who have in every age demonstrated access to
other internalised versions of different worldviews. These are the
priests, the shamans, the magicians and sorcerers, the mystics and
the saints. The buddhas and the necromancers. The poets and the
artists.

Their function is always to say 'let us consider other
possibilities...'

Conclusions
===========

What are the axioms of this meta-model?

Basically that the nearest we get to A priori truth is personal
experience. In this I am in stark contrast to the externalizers,
whose axiom I feel is more 'The nearest you get to A priori truth is
that there is a reality out there and it is available to our reason'.

        - Personal experience as a phrase, is a pointer back from
        where we find ourselves, to where we came from as thinking
        beings: i.e Raw experience.

The minimal structure I have imposed is the 'worldview' - the
personal experience of what is real at any given point (not
necessarily in time either) This I visualise as something like a
vortex in a stream of consciousness (don't take that too literally:
meant poetically) in that vortices are metastable structures, but
they exist within a dynamic frame, and there are an infinite set of
them.

There is an implied value judgement as well: That the exercise of
trying to define a minimal description of reality is important. In a
sense I feel I am applying Occams Razor to mysticism:  By taking
personal experience as ad hoc 'a priori' the meta structure I have
described becomes the simplest I can conceive of.

Further thoughts
================

Why bother with all this? Is it just armchair philosophising? Not to
me, no.

The first thing is that I feel that a major change in the way
we look at reality might simplify theoretical physics. I can't
justify it, but everytime I re-read a book on quantum physics I get
an irritating feeling that everybody, myself included, has missed
something blindingly obvious, and that actually all the data is there
it just hasn't fallen into place. Perhaps its just an feeling that
there must be a simpler explanation, but I feel that if only it were
looked at in terms of....something other than space-time-energy -
maybe something based on a theory of consciousness - then all the
bits would form a new and much simpler pattern.

Secondly, there is I feel a great need to be particular about what is
real, and what is a description of reality. There is an enormous
amount of needless friction between people on this one point. By
wrapping everything up in the label 'description' a LOT of the heat
between the internalizers and the externalizers can be removed, and
both aspects of human endeavour can be placed in a new perspective.
In so many cases of disagreement it becomes a matter of whittling
down the situation to discover the axiomatic part of bothe arguments:
At this point if the axioms conflict, at least one can be aware of
that and 'agree to differ' or if that is not possible......

...Thirdly I feel that acknowledgement of the basis for Western
thought on its primary axioms, together with the acknowledgement that
those axioms are axioms, not a priori facts, would definitely be of
value in relating to the Eastern cultures, particularly Islam. If one
is to be engaged in an idealogical war, I feel that at least one
should know what ideals one is protecting :-) Certainly I would tend
to see the rise of Islamic fundamentalism for example, as a case
where the Islamic worldview is EXTREMELY threatened by the Western
axiom set: The Islamic priests are threatened with the total loss of
their function by the scientists. The innate assumptions of Western
thought - that of racial and sexual equality (in word if not in
deed), the 'sanctity of life' that comes from Christian ethics and
the scientific implication that what is important is what produces
results (capitalism?) is completely contrary to the assumption of the
Islamic fundamentalist, - namely that what is important is to live,
and if necessary to die, correctly and according to a spiritual code.

So Gary (If you are still with me, and whoever else is left :-)) my
intention is not to preach 'I am right - I have THE correct
interpretation of reality' - but more to say :-

"I have, after many years, been unable to decide not only on what
reality might be, but even on how to go about finding it. Although my
background as a technologist gives me great ability to function in a
technological society, and drive fast cars (:-)), it does not answer any
fundamental questions about anything. Neither unfortunately has my
forays into philosophy. Indeed there seems to be a general consensus
amongst philosophers that their business is merely to define with
unerring precision, the questions:-).

Ultimately I have come to rely on my personal experience and have
found value in understanding the experience of others by working
along the lines I have described. I offer this (meta) view free of
copyright, to those who may find it useful or interesting. It cannot
be said to be final, unique, or even totally rigorous, but it has
been of use to me. I would welcome those who have an equal interest
in developing an integrated approach to knowledge to post their
meta-worldviews for interest and comparison"


Leo


Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta