The Probability your cognitive faculties produce mostly true beliefs given Evolutionary Naturalism

[Quid est Veritas?]

I am saying it (logic) finds it's basis in the observation and description of reality.

Logic is an abstraction, not an observation. What is your basis for claiming its 'basis is in observation and description of reality'?
To take an example of a logical system - mathematics. It is not based on observation, but certain axioms (in the philosophic sense) like 1 + 1 = 2. These are not proven, in spite of pages of attempts by Russel in Principia Mathematica, nor can we say we derived it from observation. For we made an inference from our observed facts into abstract concepts of numbers and only then could we apply consistent argument. We cannot apply it without abstraction of concepts, so hardly can it be termed an 'observation of reality' when we need to divorce it from reality to apply it at all.

Evolution of brains/consciousness would happen because brains are suited to better handle the challenges of reality for the organism than not having them.

Petitio Principii of the thread.

Logic is either valid or invalid in terms of internal consistency but it is also judged against consistency with external circumstance.

When logic yields an answer that is obviously or demonstrably untrue when applied in reality, then you have to go back and examine where your mistake was made.

Logic is valid when no false inference is allowed from true premises. We cannot determine whether our inference are really true in Naturalism as we base our ability to do so on irrational matter acting a certain way and it may just as well have acted differently and we would then have thought that inference 'true'. Hence we cannot establish validity and thus neither can we determine if we are being sound or not.

How do you propose to determine if our conclusions are 'untrue when applied in reality' when we cannot determine if they are even valid or not?

Rationality is a linguistic tool of our own design. We have used the observed rules of consistency in reality to create similar rules of consistency in language.

It simply had to be developed, because it is an abstraction and a language. All the rules of logic are observations about the world, language and how the logic itself operates.

Mistakes were absolutely made during the process of developing it.

This seems a bit confused as you jump between rationality and logic as if the two are interchangeable. As I explained, rationality is if propositions are in accord with reason and is thus framed in logical terms, but they are radically different concepts.
Again though, logic is determined by abstraction and axiom, not observation.

I do not understand what you mean by 'it' that mistakes were made during the development of. If it is logic, then you say all logic is flawed and therefore it is unsound. If Rationality, then it has an irrational component which thus renders it all irrational. Either way, you thus undermine our ability to reason on the world and as Naturalism is framed in these terms, you have fatally undercut it.

The idea that evolution could not result in brains that could create things like rules of logic is simply unsupported.

I already agreed with this statement. I don't see why you are repeating it. The problem is though that evolution would render us incapable of determining whether or not our conclusions are valid or sound, as we cannot determine if our inferences are absolutely true.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

That´s not at all what I said.

I asked why accept something that invalidates its own reason to be accepted. You then responded that it is an inherent problem of cognition and there is no alternative. Thus you have implicitly asserted that the idea of a self-negating concept is acceptable.

No, it´s not flawed - it just demonstrates that you are misattributing the problem when singling out a certain view as having this problem, where actually it is a basic problem of human cognition.
It´s like I would say "the problem with theism is that theists can´t fly". I´m pretty sure you would be quick to point out that non-theists can´t fly either, and that the problem of being unable to fly doesn´t have anything to do with theism - and rightly so.

Your analogy is quite disingenuous.
Again, I never 'singled out' a certain view, I was however pointing out the erroneous nature of that view. Whether my view or any other also labours under this is completely irrelevant to my argument. So yes, tu quoque fallacy it is.

 

[variant]

Logic is an abstraction, not an observation. What is your basis for claiming its 'basis is in observation and description of reality'?

Unless you think the language and development of logic poofs down from above, It is our invention.

Abstract concepts are the inventions of minds and language to describe objective states.

If the universe weren't consistent for instance, we wouldn't use consistency as a principle in our description of it.

To take an example of a logical system - mathematics. It is not based on observation, but certain axioms (in the philosophic sense) like 1 + 1 = 2. These are not proven, in spite of pages of attempts by Russel in Principia Mathematica, nor can we say we derived it from observation. For we made an inference from our observed facts into abstract concepts of numbers and only then could we apply consistent argument. We cannot apply it without abstraction of concepts, so hardly can it be termed an 'observation of reality' when we need to divorce it from reality to apply it at all.

We also developed/invented mathematics and all the requisite descriptions in it.

You act as if 1+1 = 2 is a set of principles that just happen to exist. They do not. The idea of 1 and the idea of 2 are descriptions of quantity. Mathematics is a system for the description of reality using a language developed in that reality.

Petitio Principii of the thread.

No, according to the theory in question, evolution would be good at producing biological structures that react to environmental pressures.

The idea that such structures would be nessisarily bad at doing this with cognition is demonstrated no where that I can see.

Logic is valid when no false inference is allowed from true premises. We cannot determine whether our inference are really true in Naturalism as we base our ability to do so on irrational matter acting a certain way and it may just as well have acted differently and we would then have thought that inference 'true'. Hence we cannot establish validity and thus neither can we determine if we are being sound or not.

And there is no reason to think that a brain built by material processes can't produce logic to describe the universe.

How do you propose to determine if our conclusions are 'untrue when applied in reality' when we cannot determine if they are even valid or not?

Reality gives us a lot of objective feedback.

You can't have a logically sound, valid argument with exhaustive true premises that is contradicted by objective experience in physical reality. It means you've missed something. Or, that reality isn't consistent in a way that validates logic.

If stuff like that kept happening we would have to consider whether our ability's to handle logic were indeed working, or whether we needed new systems of logic.

Accurately describing the consistency of reality is what allows logic to operate. If reality weren't first consistent in recognizable patterns, or we were not able to recognize that and formalize a system of description of this fact, logic as we handle it would be impossible.

Plantignas argument that we can not rely on a physical system to do that is unsupported because he seems to miss the point that logic in a naturalist world is a byproduct of brains describing the patterns they observe in reality.

Evolution does not simply produce "beliefs" in such a dynamic, that is a grand over-simplification, and in it, his conclusion flounders. Evolution would be producing brains to deal with environments, which have strengths for dealing with those environments, which then give rise to systems (like logic and rationality) that are developed while reacting to the real world with lots of feedback.

This seems a bit confused as you jump between rationality and logic as if the two are interchangeable. As I explained, rationality is if propositions are in accord with reason and is thus framed in logical terms, but they are radically different concepts.
Again though, logic is determined by abstraction and axiom, not observation.

Axioms don't pop out of the ether, they are observations about what must be true.

Logic as a linguistic system, doesn't pop out of the ether, it must be developed by minds.

I do not understand what you mean by 'it' that mistakes were made during the development of. If it is logic, then you say all logic is flawed and therefore it is unsound. If Rationality, then it has an irrational component which thus renders it all irrational. Either way, you thus undermine our ability to reason on the world and as Naturalism is framed in these terms, you have fatally undercut it.

No, if we propose a false rule of logic or an irrational idea it simply doesn't work out when we try to apply it consistently.

Our systems of describing the universe are developed as we learn. They do not have to be perfect and rarely are. It takes experience in the real world to refine them.

I already agreed with this statement. I don't see why you are repeating it. The problem is though that evolution would render us incapable of determining whether or not our conclusions are valid or sound, as we cannot determine if our inferences are absolutely true.

We've never needed to know that our inferences are absolutely true, that is simply incorrect. We need a functional relationship with reality.

Repeating it or no, agreement or not, you aren't grasping the point.

If we can develop logic to describe the universe than there is no reason we can not develop effective logic for doing so reliably (systems that are correct more often than not).

We determine whether our systems for describing the universe work (are reliable), depending on how often relying on them actually fails us. Which means we need the ability to recognize that we have failed, and the ability to learn.

The problem of the OP disappears completely if logic and rationality are a process that can be begun by something we should expect evolution derived brains to be good at.

If you or plantigna want to lay down some "absolute truths", I don't think jettisoning evolutionary theory, or naturalism, or both is going to do the trick.

 

[variant]

Really? Schizophrenics don't realise this, nor those with delusions. Others may, but are they not also labouring under their own delusion? There is no physiologic difference, so if you think our perceptions validate themselves by our 'reasoning', then so does a Schizophrenics by materially-derived rationality. Congratulations, you have solved mental health issues by arguing them as valid as our own.

Our perceptions validate themselves via effect.

The schizophrenic has a mental problem because their thinking process becomes divorced from a proper description of reality that yields, predictable, rational, and repeatable results.

Contrary to that, a nuro-typical individual usually functions quite well along these lines.

That is how we tell the difference.

We recognize delusion via function.

 

[quatona]

I asked why accept something that invalidates its own reason to be accepted.

Well, first of all we have never agreed that we are talking about something that "invalidates its own reasoning" - and you have yet to show that. All I have agreed with is that no matter what view we hold, it´s ultimately based on some basic assumption or axiom that cannot be shown to be accurate.

You then responded that it is an inherent problem of cognition and there is no alternative. Thus you have implicitly asserted that the idea of a self-negating concept is acceptable.

If there is no alternative and if it is unavoidable and inescapable, the question of it being acceptable or not doesn´t even come up. (And again, this is not about self-negation, it is about a certain factor of unreliability).

The thing is: I am well aware that our entire construct of reality could possibly be obsolete, e.g. if I happen to be a brain in a vat or if all this happens to be a computer simulation - possibilities that can not be disproven. This uncertainty is, imo, a given, and when I talk about validating our perception and cognition, I am always talking "under the premise that I am not a brain in a vat etc.", and so do you - or else we wouldn´t be talking at all.
That - in this most basic sense - human perception and cognition cannot self-referentially validate themselves is basic logic, and actually quite trivial.
So if this is what you mean when you ask how we validate our perception and cognition (i.e. if what you are asking is something like: "How do we know that there´s an outside world, how do we know you are not a brain in a vat?") - my answer is "We don´t." That´s nothing we can validate.If this reality as a whole is just an illusion, the process of validating our beliefs is a process of validating our beliefs about the content of this general illusion.
If, however, your question isn´t that basic (and you are willing to admit that we both accept the invalidable axiomatic assumption that there´s an outside world), we can work from there, and I and others have given you plenty of examples how we can and do validate the accuracy of our beliefs regarding this outside world: via interactions with this outside world, via feedback, function and results.

Your analogy is quite disingenuous.

It is spot on in that it explains exactly what I mean. It´s analogous to the T: I would be misattributing the problem, and you would call me upon it. That´s not a tu quoque fallacy.

Again, I never 'singled out' a certain view,

Of course you did and you do. It´s even in the thread title, it´s in every single post of yours, and it is part of your defense here.
I´m not comitting a tu quoque fallacy, since I do not claim that this problem isn´t there or goes away just because you and everybody else have it, too.

 

[ExodusMe]

The fact that the sensus divinitatis doesn't exist, which I determine based on my investigations into my sensus naturalis, shows that whether or not Christianity is true, you have no criteria to account for any beliefs you have. This makes them irrational



Of course naturalism has a model that provides warrant for my beliefs. It's the sensus naturalis that we all have. It's just broken in most people, due to evolutionary fears. This shows that my beliefs are rational. It also provides me with a defeater defeater for any arguments against my position.



Of course you won't. I wouldn't either if I were in the position of trying to defend irrationality. Well, on the other hand, I really try to be intellectually honest...

I understand your frustration as N&E is entirely inconsistent. You cannot even give me a reason why your cognitive faculties are reliable on N&E let alone discriminate the validity of your belief in other minds & theism.

This isn't a game of 'lets make up a bunch of philosophical stuff to assault other people with' as you seem to be taking it. Philosophy is about consistently understanding the nature of reality, which N&E seems to have a problem with...

 

[ExodusMe]

No, I didn´t say that. I said it isn´t a logical argument, since some logical steps are missing. Something that is not a logical argument isn´t necessarily illogical. It may just be incomplete.


That´s exactly the bare assertion that needs substantiation.

This has been susbstantiated... read the OP regarding how our cognitive faculties are developed. It is by way of random mutation & natural selection. There is no model that would allow true beliefs to occur more frequently than false beliefs on N&E....

So you believe that. How are you going about validating this belief?

I don't believe N&E. I believe humans were made in the image of God and we were made with reliable cognitive faculties that allow us to understand the world. I don't accept epiphenomenalism and I am a dualist interactionist. In this case, someone would need to disprove Christianity to prove that I am not rational in accepting this...

 

[quatona]

This has been susbstantiated... read the OP regarding how our cognitive faculties are developed. It is by way of random mutation & natural selection. There is no model that would allow true beliefs to occur more frequently than false beliefs on N&E....

It´s been claimed quite fine. It´s not been substantiated, though.

To me it seems kind of self-suggesting that those who hold accurate beliefs about the world are more likely to succesfully deal with it, survive and pass on their genes.

I don't believe N&E. I believe ....

Ok, ok. "So how do you go about validating those beliefs?" was my question.

 

[ExodusMe]

It´s been claimed quite fine. It´s not been substantiated, though.

To me it seems kind of self-suggesting that those who hold accurate beliefs about the world are more likely to succesfully deal with it, survive and pass on their genes.

The claim is substantiated based on the 4 models in the OP. I am looking for someone to provide a model that does allow true beliefs to be produced more frequently than false beliefs. Your rebuttle isn't sufficient. Why would someone necessarily hold a true belief when a false belief can also permit survival?

If a person needs to survive running away from a tiger they don't need to hold the belief "this tiger is dangerous and I need to flee". They can hold an infinite amount of other false beliefs instead that allow them to survive including "this tiger is an illusion that is giving me the signal to run off happily into the forest"....

Ok, ok. "So how do you go about validating those beliefs?" was my question.

Christian belief is validated by the Holy Spirit that gives us warrant for our beliefs about God and specific truths like "God made me in His image"....

 

[quatona]

The claim is substantiated based on the 4 models in the OP. I am looking for someone to provide a model that does allow true beliefs to be produced more frequently than false beliefs.

I am waiting for that, too. You are welcome to present one.

Your rebuttle isn't sufficient.

Since your claim is pretty vague, don´t expect an exact rebuttal.

Why would someone necessarily hold a true belief when a false belief can also permit survival?

I see you moved the goalpost from "likely more true beliefs than false beliefs" to "necessarily".

If a person needs to survive running away from a tiger they don't need to hold the belief "this tiger is dangerous and I need to flee". They can hold an infinite amount of other false beliefs instead that allow them to survive including "this tiger is an illusion that is giving me the signal to run off happily into the forest"....

Yeah, false beliefs do exist. That´s where the validation process via feedback from reality kicks in: When they have seen a tiger killing another animal or human, they are going to flee for this very, accurate reason.

Christian belief is validated by the Holy Spirit that gives us warrant for our beliefs about God and specific truths like "God made me in His image"....

So for you it´s enough to validate your beliefs by referring to your beliefs? Quite a nice double standard you have there.

 

[quatona]

I am looking for someone to provide a model that does allow true beliefs to be produced more frequently than false beliefs.

Come to think of it, I don´t even understand what the point of this request is.
I´d wager that of all beliefs held and assumptions made ever by all humans throughout history, the vast majority was inaccurate. So this is what we would expect from a hypothesis about the ontogenesis of human beliefs. A hypothesis that would predict a high percentage of accurate beliefs would not explain reality.

The important thing isn´t what percentage of human beliefs, assumptions and ideas were accurate - the important thing is: Once humans had acquired and used the faculty of reasoning, they started to develop methods to put their ideas to the test. These methods got ever better and more refined, so that accurate beliefs, ideas and assumption could be differenciated from inaccurate ones. So that, e.g., at this point we can say with certainty that lions eat other animals and contact is therefore to be avoided.

Of course, the percentage of accurate ideas, beliefs and assumptions gets even worse when it comes to superstition, mumbo jumbo and religion - those claims that by their very nature resist scrutinity due to their unfalsifiability. Just think of the countless diverse, irreconcilable, competing and contradicting assumptions regarding an alleged singularity: God.

 

[Uber Genius]

I wonder if anybody has created a program to simulate the evolution of "true" beliefs? If the simulation favored decision-making rules that we might consider "true" and punished rules that we might consider "false", then it seems that the we would have an answer that everybody could accept.

Anybody?

Created a program?

That is not a simulation of neodarwinian evolution, it is a simulation of intelligent design!

 

[Uber Genius]

As soon as you can come up with a way for humans to bypass their perception, we can start talking about this fact being a flaw of a certain idea. Until then, instead of chopping

Sounds "perceptive," but misses an obvious point, there are three inferences for why anything exists:
1 - chance
2 - necessity
3 - design

Evolution makes the first inference. But that theory entails some maximization based on being more fit not more rational.

Further perception is not what is limiting us, rather the incoherence between the inference of chance and the facts of human reasoning is limiting all knowledge claims not just evolutionary ones.

 

[Uber Genius]

The important thing isn´t what percentage of human beliefs, assumptions and ideas were accurate - the important thing is: Once humans had acquired and used the faculty of reasoning, they started to develop methods to put their ideas to the test. These methods got ever better and more refined, so that accurate beliefs, ideas and assumption could be differenciated from inaccurate ones. So that, e.g., at this point we can say with certainty that lions eat other animals and contact is therefore to be avoided.

As entertaining as your "Just So Story" is you have skipped over the account of how rationality originates given NeoDarwinian theory. You can't just jump into the middle and say well there just was rationality and then it just improved over time.

No matter how prosaic your account, it is not actually an account it is a dodge.

Now you could still hold to a neodarwinain account and recognize that it has some recalcitrant facts like Plantinga's argument and then suggest it is a defeater, but not a knockdown defeater.

 

[quatona]

As entertaining as your "Just So Story" is you have skipped over the account of how rationality originates given NeoDarwinian theory. You can't just jump into the middle and say well there just was rationality and then it just improved over time.

Of course I can - because the question wasn´t "How did rationality come about?", but "How is it possible - given that our faculties came about by way of nature/evolution - that we can arrvive at more accurate conclusions than inaccurate ones?".

No matter how prosaic your account, it is not actually an account it is a dodge.

Only if assuming that I meant to answer a question that hadn´t been asked.

Now you could still hold to a neodarwinain account and recognize that it has some recalcitrant facts like Plantinga's argument and then suggest it is a defeater, but not a knockdown defeater.

Why would you assume it was meant to be a "knockdown defeater", in the first place? It was just meant to show that the arguments aren´t the knockdown defeaters that they were presented as.

 

[quatona]

Sounds "perceptive," but misses an obvious point, there are three inferences for why anything exists:
1 - chance
2 - necessity
3 - design

So you want to introduce a new argument, now that the original one became toothless?

Evolution makes the first inference.
But that theory entails some maximization based on being more fit not more rational.

...and my point was that - once there is consciousness - accuracy of conclusions is a pretty important factor in helping you survive.

Further perception is not what is limiting us, rather the incoherence between the inference of chance and the facts of human reasoning is limiting all knowledge claims not just evolutionary ones.

Of course human knowledge is limited - no matter how it came about. Plus, there are a lot of wrong assumption, ideas and conclusions. So there is no incoherence between a theory that implies our knowledge is limited/our ideas can be wrong and reality in which our knowledge is limited and there are a lot of inaccurate ideas around.
May I also remind you that our knowledge being limited is a central tenet of Abrahamic monotheism (necessity/design), as well?
So I am really wondering why the thread question wants an explanation for a situation that apparently nobody even assumes to be actual reality, in the first place.

 

[cloudyday2]

Anybody?

Created a program?

That is not a simulation of neodarwinian evolution, it is a simulation of intelligent design!

If the programmers designed the software to simulate Earth's natural conditions with the only goal being to observe the results, then that would not be intelligent design. Intelligent design requires the programmers to have an evolutionary goal such as "rational beings".

 

[KCfromNC]

If a person needs to survive running away from a tiger they don't need to hold the belief "this tiger is dangerous and I need to flee". They can hold an infinite amount of other false beliefs instead that allow them to survive including "this tiger is an illusion that is giving me the signal to run off happily into the forest"....

This works fine for one isolated example. It gets much more difficult to believe this is likely when the false-but-good-enough evolved belief generator needs to generate a complete set of consistent false but good enough beliefs. The odds of that happening are way lower than the much simpler outcome of a the beliefs being more or less correlated to reality.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

Unless you think the language and development of logic poofs down from above, It is our invention.

Abstract concepts are the inventions of minds and language to describe objective states.

If the universe weren't consistent for instance, we wouldn't use consistency as a principle in our description of it.

Petitio Principii. Tell me, why do you think we have such odd ideas like quantum or string theory? Because we actually haven't been able to show the universe consistent in the manner we are desiring it to be. We are forcing pegs into holes they don't necessarily fit.

We also developed/invented mathematics and all the requisite descriptions in it.

You act as if 1+1 = 2 is a set of principles that just happen to exist. They do not. The idea of 1 and the idea of 2 are descriptions of quantity. Mathematics is a system for the description of reality using a language developed in that reality.

Petitio Principii. We have not been able to show in reality that 1 + 1 = 2 in spite of numerous attempts by some of the most talented mathematicians in history. Russel came close only to have Godel's incompleteness theorum blow him out of the water. 1 is a quantity and 2 is a quantity, in both cases an abstract for amount instead of 'amount of a thing' which is what we would have in 'reality'. To then draw logical relations that two of the first quantity equals the second is very much derivitive thought. I agree such principles don't just happen to exist, but if we apply naturalistic thinking we cannot validate the logical relation at all and therefore the naturalist cannot conclude such an idea is a valid one. This is the problem here.

No, according to the theory in question, evolution would be good at producing biological structures that react to environmental pressures.

The idea that such structures would be nessisarily bad at doing this with cognition is demonstrated no where that I can see.

I never said it would necessarily be bad, only that it cannot be shown to be good either. It should be good at achieving evolutionary utility, but there is no reason to think this would necessitate accuracy of reality. It might be highly accurate, but it might not and from purely naturalistic viewpoints we would be unable to determine this.

And there is no reason to think that a brain built by material processes can't produce logic to describe the universe.

Agreed, but such a materially-alone brain will by necessity think logic conforms to what its materially-derived molecular iterations consider logical. A thus B may be true, but it might just as well think A thus not B or C. As such, true inferences cannot be established and any logic so derived is a closed loop which cannot then be shown to be valid reasoning. Such a logical system based on such metaphysics can be shown complete, but not valid and therefore not shown to be sound.

Reality gives us a lot of objective feedback.

You can't have a logically sound, valid argument with exhaustive true premises that is contradicted by objective experience in physical reality. It means you've missed something. Or, that reality isn't consistent in a way that validates logic.

If stuff like that kept happening we would have to consider whether our ability's to handle logic were indeed working, or whether we needed new systems of logic.

Accurately describing the consistency of reality is what allows logic to operate. If reality weren't first consistent in recognizable patterns, or we were not able to recognize that and formalize a system of description of this fact, logic as we handle it would be impossible.

Plantignas argument that we can not rely on a physical system to do that is unsupported because he seems to miss the point that logic in a naturalist world is a byproduct of brains describing the patterns they observe in reality.

Evolution does not simply produce "beliefs" in such a dynamic, that is a grand over-simplification, and in it, his conclusion flounders. Evolution would be producing brains to deal with environments, which have strengths for dealing with those environments, which then give rise to systems (like logic and rationality) that are developed while reacting to the real world with lots of feedback.

Petitio Principii. You are assuming evolutionarily-derived systems and we have logic and our perception correlates with our perceived reality, therefore the first can create the latter. The latter however precludes the first from being able to do so in a valid form.

Evolution would be able to create systems that are consistent and complete in a logical sense, I agree. But it founders when our understanding of logic is applied to such systems as we cannot establish true inference, thus validity and therefore whether our thinking is sound. We are therefore forced to conclude that we cannot establish the accuracy of our observation or reasoning - and this was the only reason to consider naturalism in the first place however.

Axioms don't pop out of the ether, they are observations about what must be true.

Logic as a linguistic system, doesn't pop out of the ether, it must be developed by minds.

How are axioms observations? They are usually causal relations that we perceive to be true in and of themselves. That is the whole meaning of 'axiom', a self-evident truth.

As I explained earlier, logic is framed in language by necessity, it is not really 'linguistic'. It was developed by minds, I fully agree. If those minds are solely materially-derived then by its own conceived rules it is however invalid.

No, if we propose a false rule of logic or an irrational idea it simply doesn't work out when we try to apply it consistently.

Our systems of describing the universe are developed as we learn. They do not have to be perfect and rarely are. It takes experience in the real world to refine them.

Yes. So either Naturalism has to be jettisoned or our conceptions of logic, for both don't work out when we try and apply them equally as explained exhaustively above. Naturalism however bases itself on logical relations drawn, so cannot survive without logic. Thus the invalidated thought paradigm here is obviously Naturalism.

We've never needed to know that our inferences are absolutely true, that is simply incorrect. We need a functional relationship with reality.

We do need to know if our inferences are true to establish validity of logical propositions. Logic is only sound if true inferences follow from our premises. While I can happily continue on in an unsound system of logic, like Astrology or the humours, I am obviously being a bit silly to do so. So if you are happy to say that all of Science and human reasoning cannot be shown to be logically sound to protect a conclusion reached thereby, which you therefore cannot validate either, be my guest. To me, this seems somewhat beyond the pale.

Repeating it or no, agreement or not, you aren't grasping the point.

If we can develop logic to describe the universe than there is no reason we can not develop effective logic for doing so reliably (systems that are correct more often than not).

We determine whether our systems for describing the universe work (are reliable), depending on how often relying on them actually fails us. Which means we need the ability to recognize that we have failed, and the ability to learn.

The problem of the OP disappears completely if logic and rationality are a process that can be begun by something we should expect evolution derived brains to be good at.

If you or plantigna want to lay down some "absolute truths", I don't think jettisoning evolutionary theory, or naturalism, or both is going to do the trick.

This remains the same petitio principii. Our perception-derived ideas cannot validate our perception. I cannot prove a sum or a set of propositions true using only themselves. I need another thing, rules of mathematics or determination of validity to do so. For the thing itself always follows its own, which is how conspiracy theory for instance functions.

The problem here is not that I wish to jettison anything. Naturalism itsrlf saws off the branch it is sitting upon and renders it impossible to show it or anything else to be valid.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

Our perceptions validate themselves via effect.

The schizophrenic has a mental problem because their thinking process becomes divorced from a proper description of reality that yields, predictable, rational, and repeatable results.

Contrary to that, a nuro-typical individual usually functions quite well along these lines.

That is how we tell the difference.

We recognize delusion via function.

Really? The Schizophrenic's worldview validates itself quite fine. He will have the results he expected. He knows that the birds are conspiring with his mother to kill him and has validation in the birdsong.

We external people need to tell him this is delusion, his own perception will continually validate itself. If something doesn't fit, he will obviously develop a manner that it does in like manner we rational humans develop new theories to account for our perceptions that don't necessarily correlate with our previously held beliefs.

You needed to add 'rational' as an adjective to results to make us recognise delusion via function. How do we determine rationality; is it not via our reason which uses causal relations to do so? We need to show soundness of our resoning. Again as I explained exhaustively earlier, rationality only procedes from the rational, not the irrational, and blind iteration of matter is per defitionem irrational, as it does not reason. So if we accept Naturalism, then we cannot establish rationality at all and therefore the Schizophrenic is as rational as we are and therefore his delusion as valid as our own collective one.