h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

hi psi
sorry about delayed reply. Had some new self furling gear fitted to DB and have been on a 'shakedown cruise'. Will reply sat/Sn.

bs

Hi Bx4,

I look forward to it.

ttfn

hi psi

I'm not sure that a contrary proposition of the form 'evolution is guide by an agent' gets round the problem of the construction of testable propositions, except in the narrow definitional (a prior) kind, for either natural or supernatural ontologies. I don't for example see how one could specify a set of truth conditions that would make the sentence 'evolution is not guided by an agent' truth apt, that is, a proposition.

Surely if the MES(E) contains statements, for example, 'Descent with modification from a single shared common ancestor, whose truth value has not and perhaps cannot be determined, that is, they are not truth apt, then the existence of such sentences in the conjuntion of all sentences that constitute the MES(E) means that the conjunction is not truth apt. This argument is the same as the one I made earlier that if either N or E, or both, are not truth apt then the conjunction N&E cannot be truth apt.

I opted for formal statement since I was unclear what the precise nature of your objection to the sentence was 'not only an invalid conclusion but prima facie implausible' meant. So I was merely following the dictum:

'Arguments are seldom stated in standard form. A fair and impartial restatement of ordinary language reasoning is essential for argument analysis and evaluation.' http://philosophy.lander.edu/logic/ordinary_topics.html

So that the argument and your counter argument could be subject to a fair and impartial argument which is what I attempted to do. I am not clear how merely stating a conclusion that 'it is implausible on the face of it to suppose that an organism can proceed and survive in a complex and hazardous world unless it has mostly true beliefs' constitutes a sufficient counter argument that shows the original sentence is invalid ,in a particular context, implausible.

I think you are still failing to make a sufficient distinction between the generality of false beliefs and those specifically implicated in adaptive behaviour that ultimately promotes the reproductive success of an organism. The point is that the belief that 'There is a tiger about' promotes such adaptive behaviour whether it is objectively true or false in a given situation. Perhaps in some situations then given:

'Cognitive biases are instances of evolved mental behavior. Some are presumably adaptive, for example, because they lead to more effective actions in given contexts or enable faster decisions when faster decisions are of greater value.'

http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Cognitive_bias.html

Then such false positives are a necessary part of 'evolved mental behaviour' consistent with a kind of prospect theory.

In normal usage the idiom 'Let the devil takes the hindmost' :

'[M]eans that you should think of yourself and not be concerned about other people; look after yourself and let the devil take the hindmost.'

www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/let+the+devil+take+the+hindmost.html

So I am unclear as how this makes Churchland usage 'ambiguous'. [T]akes hindmost' seems consistent with the CED definition ''Farthest to the rear' understood as 'takes the position furthest to the rear'.

Hi Bx4,

There seems to be a glitch in the software- it won't let me reply to your message.

I'll post a reply anyway and with luck you will pick it up.#

ttfn

Hi Bx4,

Seems ok now.

"I'm not sure that a contrary proposition of the form 'evolution is guide by an agent' gets round the problem of the construction of testable propositions, except in the narrow definitional (a prior) kind, for either natural or supernatural ontologies. I don't for example see how one could specify a set of truth conditions that would make the sentence 'evolution is not guided by an agent' truth apt, that is, a proposition."
I admit we would have to rely on being able to interpret the evidence to see if we can detect the tell tale signatures of agency. If we discovered messages encrypted into dna then the balance of probabilities would shift in the opposite direction to the one given when parsimonious algorithmic explanations suffice to explain complexity in organic systems.

"Surely if the MES(E) contains statements, for example, 'Descent with modification from a single shared common ancestor, whose truth value has not and perhaps cannot be determined, that is, they are not truth apt, then the existence of such sentences in the conjuntion of all sentences that constitute the MES(E) means that the conjunction is not truth apt. This argument is the same as the one I made earlier that if either N or E, or both, are not truth apt then the conjunction N&E cannot be truth apt."
I think general ordinary language statements summarizing any major scientific theory could be criticized in this way, but to do so misses the point in my view. The point of the argument is to try to show that if organisms are the result of a process of evolution as best understood by science, then we have no warrant for our beliefs (including the theory of evolution itself). If your logicism deprives you of the ability to comment on the merits of the argument and instead leaves you to say that there cannot be a meaningful argument at all, then I think you haven't got the balance right. Is your view that there are no truth-apt statements that express the assertion that living organisms are the product of evolution as currently understood?

"So that the argument and your counter argument could be subject to a fair and impartial argument which is what I attempted to do. I am not clear how merely stating a conclusion that 'it is implausible on the face of it to suppose that an organism can proceed and survive in a complex and hazardous world unless it has mostly true beliefs' constitutes a sufficient counter argument that shows the original sentence is invalid ,in a particular context, implausible."
My statement of that conclusion doesn't constitute an argument for it. The arguments I have given in our dialogue over lots of posts on this topic constitute my case that this aspect of text a) is unconvincing. I remain surprised that you seem convinced though.

"I think you are still failing to make a sufficient distinction between the generality of false beliefs and those specifically implicated in adaptive behaviour that ultimately promotes the reproductive success of an organism. The point is that the belief that 'There is a tiger about' promotes such adaptive behaviour whether it is objectively true or false in a given situation."
I disagree that the distinctions I have made are insufficient. In fact In my view I have drawn them more finely than you have done here, since I have already argued that cognitive biases can indeed indicate that false beliefs can be part of mental processes implicated in adaptive behaviour, but that it does not follow that these biases deprive us of the warrant for most of our beliefs. That is because are belief forming processes operate together and we can compensate for bias and be wary of contexts in which they make us vulnerable to falsehood. We might run from a noise being afraid of being eaten by a tiger, but this does not preclude us from sober reflection that it is better to be safe than sorry, even if it probably wasn't a tiger.

"So I am unclear as how this makes Churchland usage 'ambiguous'. [T]akes hindmost' seems consistent with the CED definition ''Farthest to the rear' understood as 'takes the position furthest to the rear'.
It is consistent with that. If it weren't, then I wouldn't have said 'ambiguous', since to be so is to admit of more than one interpretation. The ambiguity comes from the interpretation also being compatible with the idiom 'devil take the hindmost'. On this interpretation, we might not be able to nail down the notion of truth, but whatever it is, it is in fatally bumping into reality when our beliefs are false that the idiom is exemplified.

Even though italics worked in the preview, they did not appear in my post (sigh).

Here is another version:

Hi Bx4,

Seems ok now.

<<"I'm not sure that a contrary proposition of the form 'evolution is guide by an agent' gets round the problem of the construction of testable propositions, except in the narrow definitional (a prior) kind, for either natural or supernatural ontologies. I don't for example see how one could specify a set of truth conditions that would make the sentence 'evolution is not guided by an agent' truth apt, that is, a proposition.">>

I admit we would have to rely on being able to interpret the evidence to see if we can detect the tell tale signatures of agency. If we discovered messages encrypted into dna then the balance of probabilities would shift in the opposite direction to the one given when parsimonious algorithmic explanations suffice to explain complexity in organic systems.

<<"Surely if the MES(E) contains statements, for example, 'Descent with modification from a single shared common ancestor, whose truth value has not and perhaps cannot be determined, that is, they are not truth apt, then the existence of such sentences in the conjuntion of all sentences that constitute the MES(E) means that the conjunction is not truth apt. This argument is the same as the one I made earlier that if either N or E, or both, are not truth apt then the conjunction N&E cannot be truth apt.">>

I think general ordinary language statements summarizing any major scientific theory could be criticized in this way, but to do so misses the point in my view. The point of the argument is to try to show that if organisms are the result of a process of evolution as best understood by science, then we have no warrant for our beliefs (including the theory of evolution itself). If your logicism deprives you of the ability to comment on the merits of the argument and instead leaves you to say that there cannot be a meaningful argument at all, then I think you haven't got the balance right. Is your view that there are no truth-apt statements that express the assertion that living organisms are the product of evolution as currently understood?

<<"So that the argument and your counter argument could be subject to a fair and impartial argument which is what I attempted to do. I am not clear how merely stating a conclusion that 'it is implausible on the face of it to suppose that an organism can proceed and survive in a complex and hazardous world unless it has mostly true beliefs' constitutes a sufficient counter argument that shows the original sentence is invalid ,in a particular context, implausible.">>

My statement of that conclusion doesn't constitute an argument for it. The arguments I have given in our dialogue over lots of posts on this topic constitute my case that this aspect of text a) is unconvincing. I remain surprised that you seem convinced though.

<<"I think you are still failing to make a sufficient distinction between the generality of false beliefs and those specifically implicated in adaptive behaviour that ultimately promotes the reproductive success of an organism. The point is that the belief that 'There is a tiger about' promotes such adaptive behaviour whether it is objectively true or false in a given situation.">>

I disagree that the distinctions I have made are insufficient. In fact In my view I have drawn more finely than you have done here, since I have already argued that cognitive biases can indeed indicate that false beliefs can be part of mental processes implicated in adaptive behaviour, but that it does not follow that these biases deprive us of the warrant for most of our beliefs. That is because are belief forming processes operate together and we can compensate for bias and be wary of contexts in which they make us vulnerable to falsehood. We might run from a noise being afraid of being eaten by a tiger, but this does not preclude us from sober reflection that it is better to be safe than sorry, even if it wasn't a tiger.

<<"So I am unclear as how this makes Churchland usage 'ambiguous'. [T]akes hindmost' seems consistent with the CED definition ''Farthest to the rear' understood as 'takes the position furthest to the rear'. >>

It is consistent with that. If it weren't, then I wouldn't have said 'ambiguous', since to be so is to admit of more than one interpretation. The ambiguity comes from the interpretation also being compatible with the idiom 'devil take the hindmost'. On this interpretation, we might not be able to nail down the notion of truth, but whatever it is, it is in fatally bumping into reality when our beliefs are false that the idiom is exemplified.

Usual apologies for delayed reply. Beowulf cluster finally fully implemented so a hectic week. Unfortunately now of to Fehmarn for first week of intermediate windsurfing course so no replies until next Sunday at earliest.

bs

hi psi

Fell of my bike resulting in hands bandaged a la mittens with no possibility of typing . Just did a reply but on previewing got blank scree and lost text. Happened before which is why I usually compose it notebook but stupidly didn't this time.

A bit about the interpretation of the tiger/kudu gedanken viewed, in the spirit of Schrödinger's cat, by the hindmost as not necessary fatal if the wavefunction collapsed into a kudu. ;-0

Will try and recreate rest
bs.

Hi Bx4,

Ok, I hope you are fully mended.

ttfn

hi psi

Skint hands much better. Switched to Notepad to avoid discombobulation with Preview.

//italics//

Seem to remember that Preview and Post use different HTML pre-processors and latter doesn't allow italics and suchlike.

Cut and paste from Notepad produced odd word-wrapping and use of << >> seemed to produce italics in Preview mode. Hopefully now fixed.

//I admit we would have to rely on being able to interpret the evidence to see if we can detect the tell tale signatures of
agency.//

I'm not sure why an agency would necessarily have to leave a signature.

//<<If we discovered messages encrypted into dna then the balance of probabilities would shift in the opposite direction to the one given when parsimonious algorithmic explanations suffice to explain complexity in organic systems.//

Surely the Principle of Parsimony (Occam's Razor) is, like methodological naturalism, a principle of method or (naturalised)
epistemology rather than an ontological one?

//I think general ordinary language statements summarizing any major scientific theory could be criticized in this way, but
to do so misses the point in my view.//
I was taking the view that the sentence is part of the hierachy of sentences that constitute the MES. The problem is that
there is no way of establishing /empirically/ whether evolution began with a /single/ common ancestor or a /shared/ gene
pool. If no /testable/ truth conditions can be specified for either origin then neither is truth apt.

//The point of the argument is to try to show that if organisms are the result of a process of evolution as best understood
by science, then we have no warrant for our beliefs (including the theory of evolution itself//

This seems to presuppose that scientific theories /necessarily/ entail a realist substructure but this is not the case since
anti-realist positions like conventionalism and instrumentalism are quite adequate without the ontological baggage that the realist stance requires. Parsimony in action.

//If your logicism deprives you of the ability to comment on the merits of the argument and instead leaves you to say that
there cannot be a meaningful argument at all, then I think you haven't got the balance right. Is your view that there are no
truth-apt statements that express the assertion that living organisms are the product of evolution as currently understood?//

This somewhat misrepresents my point which was that one cannot assert that 'The Modern Evolutionary Synthesis is true' if the theory contains sentences which are either not truth apt or are false.

However, I recall that whereas I agreed with F.P. Ramsey's view that the meaning of a proposition is the same irrespective of whether it is true or false I'm not sure whether you did. I am merely extending this view to declarative statements whose truth conditions cannot be specified

Though as I have said I am more in sympathy with a conventionalist model such as that found in Duhem's 'The Aim and Structure of Physical Theories' in which he argues , inter alia, that a theory is not judged true or false according to how well it gives an explanation of reality but well it accounts for the observations -- for how the world appears.


So the warrant for our belief in a theory is that it provides a framework that allows us to explain and/or predict phenomena
while avoiding unnecessary forays into metaphysics.

// I disagree that the distinctions I have made are insufficient. In fact In my view I have drawn more finely than you have
done here, since I have already argued that cognitive biases can indeed indicate that false beliefs can be part of mental processes implicated in adaptive behaviour, but that it does not follow that these biases deprive us of the warrant for most
of our beliefs//

I find this a bit puzzling since I can find nothing in any of your posts which links cognitive bias to adaptive behaviour as
I did in my last substantive post but I may have missed it so it would be helpful if you can refer me to the post where you
did so.

I'm not wholly persuaded as you claim that you have 'drawn more finely than I have since with references like the one to 'most of our beliefs' you seem to be arguing for a greater /generality/ than I do. y argument has been restricted to those beliefs that are implicated in causal chains leading to adaptive behaviour.

Unless one is an 'ultradarwinian fundamentalist' (S.J. Gould) it does not seem reasonable to take the view that 'most of our
beliefs' are implicated in causal chains leading to adaptive behaviour and I have argued to the contrary.

To repeat my earlier link:

'Cognitive biases are instances of evolved mental behavior. Some are presumably adaptive, for example, because they lead to

more effective actions in given contexts or enable faster decisions when faster decisions are of greater value.'

http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Cognitive_bias.html

So I am making no claim as to the role cognitive bias may or may not play in 'most of our beliefs' that are not

implicated in adaptive behaviour.

//It is consistent with that. If it weren't, then I wouldn't have said 'ambiguous', since to be so is to admit of more than one interpretation. The ambiguity comes from the interpretation also being compatible with the idiom 'devil take the hindmost'. On this interpretation, we might not be able to nail down the notion of truth, but whatever it is, it is in fatally bumping into reality when our beliefs are false that the idiom is exemplified.//

This argument seems odd in that you argument has a whiff of circularity. Simply assering that Churchland phrase is ambiguous does not make it so.

The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations lists "Every man for himself and the Devil take the hindmost" as an early 16th century proverb. However, unlike this proverb where 'take' is an imperative Churchland by contrast says 'Truth, whatever that is, definitely takes the hindmost' which does not use the imperative and so is more akin to 'The Devil takes the cup' rather than 'Te Devil take the cup'.

However I doubt we will agree on this.

bs

Hi Bx4,

Yes, I don't know who thought it was a good idea to treat html differently in the preview but I'd like to persuade them that it isn't. I'd thought that with this moving into the private sector there might be improvements in clarity and functionality. Apparently not as the reply button doesn't seem to work properly either.

Hence I'll reply in the next post.

Hi Bx4,

<>
It wouldn't, but in that case evidence to support the idea that an agent is responsible would be absent. Similarly, god could have neatly placed fossils and rigged carbon decay in order to fool us into thinking the earth is very old. This doesn't invalidate the evidence for notion that it is very old. In order to establish that an agent guided evolution you would have to find evidence for it. I agree that not finding the evidence doesn't conclusively prove lack of agency though.

<<Surely the Principle of Parsimony (Occam's Razor) is, like methodological naturalism, a principle of method or (naturalised)
epistemology rather than an ontological one?..
Yes I agree.

<>
I think that is technically correct but not relevant to our appraisal of text a).

<>
I disagree, there is no presupposition of realism at all. Our assessment of the epistemic grounds for the MES is not incompatible with an instrumentalist stance in my view.

<>
No, you can't, I agree. I can't see how that is relevant though since if it is without fifty pages of closely argued A4 with lot's of symbols involved, you can do that to any argument, regardless of its merit.


<>
Odd since I've been linking these since way back in the tiger gedanken when I agreed that the over sensitive agent detector bias is causally implicated in the adaptive behaviour of running away. Perhaps you searched back for a string of words I did not use?

<>
One distinction I drew which seems absent from the above is that between product and process. Whether a given belief at time t is causally implicated in adaptive behaviour is not the issue, nor is the percentage so implicated in modern living. The issue is the development of our /processes/ via evolution, where adaptive behaviour is part of the mechanism, and I have also drawn attention to the cultural prostheses we employ to compensate for ensuing glitches and biases, for example the scientific method.

<>
That wasn't my point, rather I was pointing out that if her utterance admits of more than one interpretation then it is ambiguous, and it clearly does since truth in the form of bumping into reality could be what takes the hindmost in the race for accurate beliefs.

I don't see why her shift from the imperative clears up the ambiguity, but as you say, we are unlikely to agree.

I just lost the first attempt when posting. It just disappeared. I had pasted some of it to a document but I might have missed some where I agreed that I'd come round to your view on meaning vs truth value, I'm frustrated with this platform so apologies for typos etc.

bsy

Hi Bx4,

Format odd in the last version so here is a take 2:

"I'm not sure why an agency would necessarily have to leave a signature."
It wouldn't, but in that case evidence to support the idea that an agent is responsible would be absent. Similarly, god could have neatly placed fossils and rigged carbon decay in order to fool us into thinking the earth is very old. This doesn't invalidate the evidence for notion that it is very old. In order to establish that an agent guided evolution you would have to find evidence for it. I agree that not finding the evidence doesn't conclusively prove lack of agency though.

"Surely the Principle of Parsimony (Occam's Razor) is, like methodological naturalism, a principle of method or (naturalised)
epistemology rather than an ontological one?"
Yes I agree.

"I was taking the view that the sentence is part of the hierachy of sentences that constitute the MES. The problem is that
there is no way of establishing /empirically/ whether evolution began with a /single/ common ancestor or a /shared/ gene
pool. If no /testable/ truth conditions can be specified for either origin then neither is truth apt."
I think that is technically correct but not relevant to our appraisal of text a).

"This seems to presuppose that scientific theories /necessarily/ entail a realist substructure but this is not the case since
anti-realist positions like conventionalism and instrumentalism are quite adequate without the ontological baggage that the realist stance requires. Parsimony in action."
I disagree, there is no presupposition of realism at all. Our assessment of the epistemic grounds for the MES is not incompatible with an instrumentalist stance in my view.

"This somewhat misrepresents my point which was that one cannot assert that 'The Modern Evolutionary Synthesis is true' if the theory contains sentences which are either not truth apt or are false."
No, you can't, I agree. I can't see how that is relevant though since if it is without fifty pages of closely argued A4 with lot's of symbols involved, you can do that to any argument, regardless of its merit.

"I find this a bit puzzling since I can find nothing in any of your posts which links cognitive bias to adaptive behaviour as
I did in my last substantive post but I may have missed it so it would be helpful if you can refer me to the post where you
did so."
Odd since I've been linking these since way back in the tiger gedanken when I agreed that the over sensitive agent detector bias is causally implicated in the adaptive behaviour of running away. Perhaps you searched back for a string of words I did not use?

"I'm not wholly persuaded as you claim that you have 'drawn more finely than I have since with references like the one to 'most of our beliefs' you seem to be arguing for a greater /generality/ than I do. y argument has been restricted to those beliefs that are implicated in causal chains leading to adaptive behaviour.

Unless one is an 'ultradarwinian fundamentalist' (S.J. Gould) it does not seem reasonable to take the view that 'most of our
beliefs' are implicated in causal chains leading to adaptive behaviour and I have argued to the contrary.

To repeat my earlier link:

'Cognitive biases are instances of evolved mental behavior. Some are presumably adaptive, for example, because they lead to

more effective actions in given contexts or enable faster decisions when faster decisions are of greater value.'

http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Cognitive_bias.html

So I am making no claim as to the role cognitive bias may or may not play in 'most of our beliefs' that are not

implicated in adaptive behaviour."

One distinction I drew which seems absent from the above is that between product and process. Whether a given belief at time t is causally implicated in adaptive behaviour is not the issue, nor is the percentage so implicated in modern living. The issue is the development of our /processes/ via evolution, where adaptive behaviour is part of the mechanism, and I have also drawn attention to the cultural prostheses we employ to compensate for ensuing glitches and biases, for example the scientific method.

"This argument seems odd in that you argument has a whiff of circularity. Simply assering that Churchland phrase is ambiguous does not make it so."
That wasn't my point, rather I was pointing out that if her utterance admits of more than one interpretation then it is ambiguous, and it clearly does since truth in the form of bumping into reality could be what takes the hindmost in the race for accurate beliefs.

I don't see why her shift from the imperative clears up the ambiguity, but as you say, we are unlikely to agree.

I just lost the first attempt when posting. It just disappeared. I had pasted some of it to a document but I might have missed some where I agreed that I'd come round to your view on meaning vs truth value, I'm frustrated with this platform so apologies for typos etc.
ttfn

hi psi

Risking the 'Reply' button.

Typically busy with work and 'social whirl'. Also the PSU of my aged but still favourite Sony Vaio use for this kind of stuff seems to be going terminal.

Bought bits for a new machine so a build on Saturday with a leap to Bloatware 7. All going well I will reply Sunday
bs

hi psi

Attempted to post my response here but although I can (apparently) log on when I try to post I get a ' site unavailable' message. Most vexing.
bs

hi psi

Even more oddly I appear to e able to log on a leave messages but if I cut and paste text from Notepad I get a 'site unavailable' message.

Im going to try breaking Notepd text into chunks before posting to see if that works.
bs

//It wouldn't, ...I agree that not finding the evidence doesn't conclusively prove lack of agency though.//
The problem here is that evidentialism is like methodological naturalism and Occam's Razor a principle of method and like
these provides no basis for assuming a naturalist ontology.

//I think that is technically correct but not relevant to our appraisal of text a).//

It was not intended as such but a comment on the (subordinate) discussion about whether one can legitimately assert that
scientific theories are true if they contain sentence which may prove to be false or unverifiable.

Chunk 2 won't post. retyping:

//I disagree, there is no presupposition of realism at all. Our assessment of the epistemic grounds for the MES is not
incompatible with an instrumentalist stance in my view.//

Since instrumentalism (and, more generally, conventionalism) explicitly excludes reference to concepts lie truth and reality, I am somewhat unclear how this is compatible with your earlier comment ''...the we have no warrant for our beliefs (including' the theory of evolution itself). ' given:

'Warrant is that "whatever precisely it it is, which makes the difference between knowledge and mere true belief. S knows that p, therefore, if an only if, S's belief that P is warranted and that p is true.'

[Taken from a paper' Warrant Entails Truth'; Trenton Merricks; Philosophy and Phenomenological Research55 (1995): 841-
855. Original link omitted as this might be what caused posting problem]

So in this sense any epistemic grounds which presuppose some notion of truth would seem to be quite distinct from and
incompatible with those which don't.

Chunk 2 Cont.

Link to Merricks' paper:

http://pages.shanti.virginia.edu/merricks/files/2010/05/Warrant-entails-Truth.pdf

Chunk 3

//Odd ... Perhaps you searched back for a string of words I did not use?

I searched using 'cognitive bias' which you have used here. I don't think that an 'over sensitive agent detector bias' is
not synonymous with 'cognitive bias'. In an case the last iteration of my tiger gedanken does not presuppose an 'over active
agent detector' but rather one cannot distinguish between the aural sinature of a kudu or a tiger moving through heavy
jungle.

Since the probability of the stimulus being due to a tiger is only 0.1 then this might qualify as a 'neglect of probability'
cognitive bias:

http://cognitivebiases.com/neglect-of-probability/

However, I think in terms of beliefs implicated in the causal chain leading to adaptive behaviour the idea that it is a
violation of 'the normative rules for making decisions' is problematic. A decision that a particular stimulus is probably due
to a kudu and flight is unnecessary is less of a survival behaviour than a decision to flee whenever an ambiguous tige/kudu
stimulus is experienced.