tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post8168539083187821933..comments2023-10-29T10:32:36.914-04:00Comments on Philosophy, et cetera: Structure and SimilarityRichard Y Chappellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comBlogger48125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-32526491926159437662008-05-14T08:06:00.000-04:002008-05-14T08:06:00.000-04:00This seems like a similar question to whether ther...This seems like a similar question to whether there exists an ideal set of beliefs about the world. Although there would be multiple sets of beliefs consistent with one carving up of the world, assuming you were able to define the boundary between the carving up and the set of beliefs. Anyway, in both cases we are creating a simplified representation of the world and then wanting some measure of how good a representation it is. If I understand your arguments then you are claiming/have claimed that in both cases such a measure does exist, and that there is only one correct measure. I don't like this idea because it introduces another fundamental entity into the world (the measure) which doesn't seem to give us anything that we wouldn't get from using utility to define the quality of a representation.<BR/><BR/>I heard you earlier talking about maximally consistent belief sets (or something similar) before, but I've never really got what you were getting at. Is the idea the that there exists some measure that determines how good a belief set is, that we don't know what it is, but we know it exists?benhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17349603983957093745noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-53978860077423917742008-05-13T14:28:00.000-04:002008-05-13T14:28:00.000-04:00I have been assuming the standard peer disagreemen...I have been assuming the standard peer disagreement premise that one shouldnt unduly privilege oneself. With that, I think, the argument goes through.<BR/>1. It is possible that there are many different sets of creatures each of which carve the world up differently.<BR/>2. We shouldnt unduly privilege our way.<BR/>3. Therefore it is possible that there are many equally valid ways to carve the world up.<BR/><BR/>I'm not sure what work is being done by 'unduly' in the second premise. I mean something like: for each creature to whom the world appears to be patterned in some way, that pattern is projectible, etc. in the same sort of way as our is for us.Barryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04774365728896536875noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-48772451402556861992008-05-12T16:28:00.000-04:002008-05-12T16:28:00.000-04:00What's the "strong modal argument"? I don't see ho...What's the "strong modal argument"? I don't see how you get from the possibility of alternative sensitivities to the conclusion that they're all equally valid.Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-77567977606478534322008-05-12T16:24:00.000-04:002008-05-12T16:24:00.000-04:00I have just been playing devil's advocate here. T...I have just been playing devil's advocate here. The arguments for both sides seem unconclusive. On the one side there is what currently strikes me as a strong modal argument. On the other - occupied by yourself and the later Lewis - we have an argument from theoretical utility, and an inference to the best explanation. (From very young I have been struck by the contingency of our ways of carving things up, so you are right in not attributing to me the intuition that our way must be the right way.) Perhaps I can end with a point from Carla: just because Lewis calls his favourite properties 'natural' properties doesn't mean that there are natural properties, and that those are them.Barryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04774365728896536875noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-2367255173831024482008-05-12T15:35:00.000-04:002008-05-12T15:35:00.000-04:00"I think we have to say that both patterns are equ..."<I>I think we have to say that both patterns are equally valid.</I>"<BR/><BR/>I don't see any reason to grant that. I'm far more inclined to take as a default response that "either ourselves or the other creatures were more sensitive to naturalness." This meshes with our commonsense judgments that some divisions <I>are</I> more natural and projectible than others (e.g. jade). You can deny this premise, but I think that's crazy. So I'm unmoved by your objection. It just strikes me as thoroughly unmotivated (though I grant you see things differently).Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-17691238462128987412008-05-12T15:13:00.000-04:002008-05-12T15:13:00.000-04:00The structure of my argument is this. We are sens...The structure of my argument is this. We are sensitive to some patterns in nature. It is possible that there are other patterns that we are not sensitive to. Suppose two patterns, one discernible by us, the other by some other creature. Which is the more natural? One way to answer this would be to claim that either ourselves or the other creatures were more sensitive to naturalness. But I cannot think of any good arguments for this result. Absent such an argument, I think we have to say that both patterns are equally valid. This is not to say that nature has no structure, quite the opposite. It is simply to point to a difficulty in defending a natural-nonnatural distinction within its structure. <BR/><BR/>(You beg the question, Richard, by presupposing a conception of naturalness in your claim that jade has been shown to be 'less natural' than jadeite and nephrite.)Barryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04774365728896536875noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-68577860772986939392008-05-12T14:46:00.000-04:002008-05-12T14:46:00.000-04:00Richard,Very good point! I'm afraid that I have b...Richard,<BR/><BR/>Very good point! I'm afraid that I have been infected with an unreasonable distrust of metaphysics; even so, a provisional structural or pattern realism about our categories as being the most natural so-far seems perfectly philosophically acceptable, and, further, practically indispensable (Bas Van Fraassen and many friends of mine would disagree).<BR/><BR/>Hmm...<I>Prolegomena to Provisional Metaphysics from our Best Science</I>-- I'd read that.Johnny Logichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12400552435971349275noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-91880491386701906222008-05-12T13:33:00.000-04:002008-05-12T13:33:00.000-04:00Interesting! But I think the real work there is b...Interesting! But I think the real work there is being done by the metaphysical assumption of gunk, and not the mere fact of epistemic disagreement. Without the supposition of gunk (which is highly controversial!), there is no problem at all.<BR/><BR/>But let's suppose the world is gunky, so that there is no final, fundamental level to reality. Even then, would it follow that there is no structure to the world? Well, no. It seems the appropriate conclusion is not that all divisions are equally natural (which is absurd, and immediately refuted by the fact that we learned that jade is less natural than jadeite and nephrite), but simply that there is no <I>maximally</I> natural categorization. Whatever we come up with, further investigation would reveal some <I>more</I> natural way to carve this up.<BR/><BR/>Unlimited room for improvement should not be confused with no room for improvement.Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-62679380408667595772008-05-12T00:09:00.000-04:002008-05-12T00:09:00.000-04:00It is trivial that any two objects are similar and...It is trivial that any two objects are similar and disimilar to each other in countlessly many respects. We are especially sensitive to some of them - mainly the ones we see without instruments, though we do sometimes revise our beliefs on the basis of stuff we see with instruments (glass being a liquid, jadite&nephrite, all that empty space in our tabletops). But, prima facie, just as it is possible that there could be creatures who were baffled by the concept of jade, it seems possible to me that there could be creatures who were baffled by our concept of an electron, or quark, or planet. Imagine the arrangment of stuff a couple of levels below quarks bears the same relation to quarks as electrons to tables, i.e. that they show quark-talk to be grossly misleading. (I am supposing that the claim that tables are completed solid is grossly misleading given that there are mainly space.) Creatures sensitive to these lower levels will think our concepts gerrymandered. Suppose gunk, and that different levels mislead, and that different creatures are sensitive to different levels. Then which sensitivities should we privilege? Our own? I'd say so. But we shouldn't thereby take ourselves to be describing 'the world, as it really is.' <BR/><BR/>I am constitutionally struck by the anthropocentricity of the notions of simplicity, explanatoriness, intuitiveness, usefulness, even predictability, which underpin objective claims. This inclines me to modesty in making claims about how the world really is. It also throws doubt on any argument from theoretical utility.<BR/><BR/>Would God see electrons? Or anything else? Maybe just pure information? A single, buzzing, whole? Or an infinity of little interactions?Barryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04774365728896536875noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-44011990841774844702008-05-11T23:48:00.000-04:002008-05-11T23:48:00.000-04:00As you might expect, I'm suspicious of your key st...As you might expect, I'm suspicious of your key step: "<I>And this should lead us to think that there may be no line to be drawn in abstraction from creatures.</I>"<BR/><BR/>Can you elaborate on this?Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-43673131771483477122008-05-11T23:43:00.000-04:002008-05-11T23:43:00.000-04:00An epistemological response to a metaphysics argum...An epistemological response to a metaphysics argument. Ug. I should have concluded as follows. We have no justification for drawing the line here rather than there. And we have good reason to believe that the line which seems most intuitive to us will be totally unintuitive to some other creatures. And this should lead us to think that there may be no line to be drawn in abstraction from creatures. We are left with all lines 'metaphysically on a par.' I think this was the view of your older self.Barryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04774365728896536875noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-57605254058779062962008-05-11T23:41:00.000-04:002008-05-11T23:41:00.000-04:00I don't think the mere fact that we're fallible sh...I don't think the mere fact that we're fallible should lead us to skepticism. But that's a separate issue, in any case. For now, I'm just concerned with the question whether some properties <I>are</I> more natural than others; not whether we can <I>know</I> it. This metaphysical question is where I depart from my "old self".Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-3151835779979091022008-05-11T23:37:00.000-04:002008-05-11T23:37:00.000-04:00Hi Richard,I think jade is an interesting case bec...Hi Richard,<BR/><BR/>I think jade is an interesting case because with it there is an obvious sense in which the concept is gerrymandered, but nevertheless a clear pattern which all jade things appear to instantiate, namely being a green, partly-transparent precious stone found in such an such rock (I beg the geologists' forgiveness). The thought was that discovering the deeper evidence of gerrymandering would serve as a premise in a sceptical argument the same way that a hallucination might. In the case of jade we have something that appears to track a natural pattern but doesnt. So appearing to track a natural pattern doesnt entail tracking a natural pattern. But all we have to go on, surely, are cases of things appearing to track natural patterns. If you have discovered anything surer than this, I would be delighted. Descartes would dance a jig. But I am not optimistic. So I doubt your confidence in having found the "appropriate" standard for categorising things. Now, I dont deny there is theoretical advantage in positing naturalness, as Lewis argued. I just worry that there may be insufficient justification for drawing it here rather than there.Barryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04774365728896536875noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-56086008698056799202008-05-11T23:20:00.000-04:002008-05-11T23:20:00.000-04:00Barry, I thought 'jade' was a paradigm example of ...Barry, I thought 'jade' was a paradigm example of a concept that we discovered is indeed hopelessly unnatural (gerrymandered).<BR/><BR/>I'm sure there could be creatures who are sensitive to different things. They may be better or worse than us at discerning the natural properties, i.e. categorizing things <I>appropriately</I>. How is that an argument against my view?Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-83788452562112754292008-05-11T21:52:00.000-04:002008-05-11T21:52:00.000-04:00I wonder whether we can conceive of a species of e...I wonder whether we can conceive of a species of enquirer with the following perceptual hardware: colour-blindness, and an acute sensitivity to the chemical structures of things. Perhaps, for some such creatures, our concept 'jade' would seem as gerrymandered as our 'plog'. <BR/><BR/>Indeed, if there is anything to Wittgenstein's notion of family resemblance - which the difficulty of finding necessary and sufficient conditions for application of many concepts might suggest - then it seems plausible that there could be other creatures who were sensitive to very different patterns. <BR/><BR/>Then we're back with your old self, Richard.Barryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04774365728896536875noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-91890081310786421502008-05-11T16:48:00.000-04:002008-05-11T16:48:00.000-04:00thanks for the link John.thanks for the link John.Geniushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11624496692217466430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-43189528809203670942008-05-11T16:07:00.000-04:002008-05-11T16:07:00.000-04:00Richard,I see. While I am inclined to agree that ...Richard,<BR/><BR/>I see. While I am inclined to agree that there are projectible predicates (as this directly follows from thinking the world has <I>some</I> structure), I do not know how we can know which are projectible (again with the epistemology, but it seems an important question!), and what follows from there being said predicates.<BR/><BR/>As an aside to those who are still interested, here is <A HREF="http://sowi.iwp.uni-linz.ac.at/Sorites/Natural_Kinds.html" REL="nofollow">a pretty clear presentation</A> of the difficulties around projectibility, including its over-reliance on language, question-begging on uniformity of nature, etc.Johnny Logichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12400552435971349275noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-27421547210931469772008-05-11T15:56:00.000-04:002008-05-11T15:56:00.000-04:00Hi John, no worries. Just to clarify: I do not mea...Hi John, no worries. Just to clarify: I do not mean to <I>argue</I> that green is projectible. I'm just assuming this for sake of argument. If you suspect that it is really grue that is projectible rather than green, you can simply switch the terms accordingly and my metaphysical conclusions will still go through fine. If you do not believe that <I>any</I> terms are projectible, or that <I>any</I> inductive arguments are more or less reasonable than any others, then indeed we have reached a bedrock, fundamental disagreement, and further progress may not be possible.Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-64427146829572103482008-05-11T15:43:00.000-04:002008-05-11T15:43:00.000-04:00Well, I have missed a lot. Richard,Thanks for the...Well, I have missed a lot. <BR/><BR/>Richard,<BR/><BR/>Thanks for the clarification; given my interests I naturally conceived of the question as being epistemological, rather than metaphysical. Though, I am confused about whether or not you claims are metaphysical or epistemic, given that you assert that green is projectible and thus good for making inductions (more probable, etc.). The closest to an argument you have made for this is as follows: <BR/><BR/><I>The collection of green things has more in common (i.e. are more similar) than the collection of grue things. A grue object today, and another grue object from after 2020, are less alike than two green objects. If you agree that this is true, then you must think that green is objectively more natural than grue. </I><BR/><BR/>I simply must disagree, since this seems to me a straightforwardly question-begging exercise. Thinking as a green-speaker, naturally grue things are less self-similar than green things for the simple reason that it is more complex to express its behavior through time than green. Unfortunately, to a grue-speaker, it is green that would thus be more complexly expressed and less natural. Simply put, “likeness” is derivative of a particular language, not prior to it. <BR/><BR/>The situation is completely analogous to problems in Kolmolgorov complexity, clustering algorithms, and other machine learning settings; mathematically, these codings are homeomorphic, meaning they are intertranslatable (with a computable translation function) and derivative properties are not objective (in the sense of being language invariant), yet we must use <I>some</I> language.* Given background knowledge, languages may be tailored to the structure of the domain of discourse (e.g. closed-world assumptions, assumed dimensionality, etc.). Though I think that there is <I>some</I> structure to the world, I think that appealing to your language to get and inferentially exploit this structure is exactly backwards. <BR/><BR/>So, having bitten this bullet, all I can say is that our intuitions about this differ, and I’m not sure how to proceed from there (important problems with philosophical methodology are implied here, but this is off-topic). <BR/><BR/>I hope this exchange has not frustrated you overmuch—I have enjoyed the chance to think about philosophy again. <BR/><BR/>Cheers.<BR/><BR/>*If this intersection of machine learning and philosophy interests you, there is a result called the <A HREF="”" REL="nofollow" HTTP://EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG/WIKI/NO_FREE_LUNCH_THEOREM>No free lunch in search and optimization</A> that has concerned some epistemologists and philosophers of science.Johnny Logichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12400552435971349275noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-59818859973643667072008-05-11T14:32:00.000-04:002008-05-11T14:32:00.000-04:00And if you want to stop, I'm more than willing to....And if you want to stop, I'm more than willing to. I don't think that denying that there is a fact of the matter to color should be a complete blockage to discussion, but maybe it is.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-9957163269674305242008-05-11T14:30:00.000-04:002008-05-11T14:30:00.000-04:00See what I'm trying to show you, however obliquely...See what I'm trying to show you, however obliquely, is that I can make a choice between grue and green without any notion of objective knowledge creeping in. I begin with the world as it is now (how else CAN I begin?) and precede to consider how useful a change in the way we define color is. Based on how you define grue I determine (as I demonstrated above) that its practical consequences are nonexistent (now) and therefore it is not useful. <BR/><BR/>Note that I do not have to assume that the way I cut up the world now is the best way (in fact I'm pretty sure it isn't), I just have to consider if the way that you are proposing has useful consequences.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-76822522258888240182008-05-11T14:00:00.000-04:002008-05-11T14:00:00.000-04:00If you think that both inductive arguments are equ...If you think that both inductive arguments are equally reasonable, and that there's no sense in which X is objectively more similar to Y than Z, then you have no grounds for believing one conclusion rather than the other (e.g. that future emeralds will be green rather than grue). By the principle of <A HREF="http://www.philosophyetc.net/2008/04/meta-coherence-vs-humble-convictions.html" REL="nofollow">metacoherence</A>, you should be agnostic.<BR/><BR/>There's nothing special about the case of emerald colour, of course. You should become a skeptic about all manner of induction, even (e.g.) whether the sun will rise tomorrow. After all, our belief here rests on the premise that the future will be like the past (ceteris paribus). But you think all possible states are equally "similar", objectively speaking. So you have no grounds for judging that a world where the sun explodes tomorrow is any more different or unusual than one in which it carries on in what I would consider to be the "usual" manner.<BR/><BR/>I consider that a reductio of your position. But, as I said, if you're willing to bite that bullet then my arguments will have no further traction on you. So perhaps we should simply call it a day.Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-28605064179960054862008-05-11T13:49:00.000-04:002008-05-11T13:49:00.000-04:00So I guess the answer to your question is...no.So I guess the answer to your question is...no.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-76035225978691766152008-05-11T13:48:00.000-04:002008-05-11T13:48:00.000-04:00I can conceive of a society in which no difference...I can conceive of a society in which no difference is made between green and blue. Maybe this is because the don't perceive a difference or maybe it is because they think that grue has two states both of which are grue. This wouldn't be because there way of cutting up the world is objectively worse, but that our way of cutting up the world isn't particularly useful for their projects. Conceivably we could have a way of cutting up the world that seems particularly ludicrous (or at least absolutely useless) to them.<BR/><BR/>One way of cutting up the world is not objectively better than another; however one way may be more useful.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-57179304625869843582008-05-11T13:21:00.000-04:002008-05-11T13:21:00.000-04:00You didn't answer my question. (Do you think there...You didn't answer my question. (Do you think there is an objective fact of the matter as to whether X is more like Y or Z?)<BR/><BR/>Again, if you think that the colour of a grue object "changes" between now and 2021 then you are implicitly treating green as <I>more fundamental</I>. From the perspective of a grue speaker, the colour is the same all along: grue now, and grue later. In order to make sense of the idea that the shift from green to blue is a change (whereas the shift from grue to bleen in 2020 is <I>not</I> a change), we must think that some colour predicates are more natural than others. Talk of grue and bleen is really just a gerrymandered way to talk about the underlying properties of being green and blue at various times. Green and blue are real properties in a way that grue and bleen are not.Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.com