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

[KCfromNC]

You don't understand the objection based on this question.

Sounds like your intellectual curiosity ends at "if it isn't right infront of me and requires significant thought, then I don't want to know".

What are you doing on this forum again?

Based on your post, it appears that I'm writing comments you can't seem to come up with actual responses to.

 

[KCfromNC]

This is just a misunderstanding. You are assuming that the content of your beliefs have efficacious power on your cognitive faculties.

Don't blame me. You introduced the idea in post 69 with the idea of "an infinite amount of other false beliefs instead that allow them to survive" by knowing to flee from a hypothetical tiger.

 

[ExodusMe]

Don't blame me. You introduced the idea in post 69 with the idea of "an infinite amount of other false beliefs instead that allow them to survive" by knowing to flee from a hypothetical tiger.

Right, and I wasn't claiming those beliefs were efficacious. Think about it this way

In materialism (a natural bedfellow to naturalism) all that exists is the physical world. This means that the content of our beliefs are not physical objects. For instance, the belief "there is something red appearing in front of me" is just a language of your thought-life (or something like that? [we would need a materialist to tell us what that is]). There would be specific neurological physiology that would occur with your sensory system, but the content of your beliefs regarding those senses is not what causes the reaction in your brain. Therefore, the content of your beliefs do not need to be true to produce biologically advantageous behavior.

This is what I meant with the statement "an infinite amount of other false beliefs instead that allow them to survive". If we think about how many possible beliefs you could hold along with a certain neurological physiology that produces biologically advantageous behavior versus the one true belief of what is actually happening we can then say that it is far more likely for cognitive faculties to hold a false belief than a true belief on N&E.

Key distinctions would be the content of our beliefs and our neurological physiology that produces the behavior.

Edited

Thanks for responding

 

[variant]

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.

Quantum and string theory are about as abstract as it gets. So, if the universe were not incredibly consistent, we would not be able to get to that level of abstraction or theory.

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.

The level of validation needed for 1 + 1 = 2 already exists, just not on they hyper rational level you would like.

But again, you have to understand that rationality is justified by practice and not the other way around.

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.

You would be unable to determine it absolutely, which is exactly the case.

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

No system can be shown to be valid outside of it's own fundamental basis.

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.

The soundness either holds up in practice or it doesn't, that is all that can matter.

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.

To perceive something you have to observe it. For something to be evident, it has to be observed. For something to be "self-evident" you must mean that it is "observed to be self evident".

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.

Languages are developed by minds and the language to describe logic is developed by minds. The logic that the minds are describing may exist outside the minds but not nessisarily how minds describe it.

An immaterial mind has the same problem as a material one so there is no escaping the problem. As, our minds would have to describe whatever object you surmise whether it be "objective reality" or "God", imperfectly.

"invalid" has no meaning here if indeed logic was developed by material minds that declare such logic "invalid" it's just a self referential loop.

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.

But they do "work". They work quite well, so your absolutist rationalism is just a rather silly idea, not capable of comprehending it's own basis.

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.

We do not need to know that logic is absolutely sound to use it no.

It must be sound enough to accurately describe the system it is describing, well enough to function within it.

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.

Our experience in reality is and can be the only validator for logic that we will ever have.

You don't actually have a solution here for logic always requiring a premise more simple than you can possibly justify, that is the nature of the beast. Reality and our experience of it comes BEFORE any axiom can be formed.

 

[variant]

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.

Not really, we term it a mental disorder because it obviously doesn't function.

The problem you are having is that the "worldview" of the schizophrenic is judged by inter-subjective relationships, that you seem to think don't happen when we have other ideas like, "logic".

Without other peoples help the schizophrenic would probably be pretty lost. Where as, we are not quite as lost because our brains don't suffer from that kind of delusion and they function quite well in the world they exist within.

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.

And when you are wrong it simply won't work. Just like the schizophrenic. And if you have no way to realize this, you will be wrong. If it matters that you are wrong, you will be wrong in a punishing way as reality is not very forgiving.

Which is of course why we develop systems of thinking to avoid such problems in thinking.

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.

It is not "by definition" irrational, that is just your misunderstanding of it.

If the process had no method for self correction, it would of course never come to any order.

If the process developed brains then it came to invent what you know as rationality.

If rationality comes from the interrelationship between materially derived brains and material reality, then that is simply the case.

How this circumstance becomes "better" if we add in some super-naturalism, is beyond me though.

 

[KCfromNC]

Right, and I wasn't claiming those beliefs were efficacious. Think about it this way

In materialism (a natural bedfellow to naturalism) all that exists is the physical world. This means that the content of our beliefs are not physical objects. For instance, the belief "there is something red appearing in front of me" is just a language of your thought-life (or something like that? [we would need a materialist to tell us what that is]). There would be specific neurological physiology that would occur with your sensory system, but the content of your beliefs regarding those senses is not what causes the reaction in your brain.

I'm not sure what you're saying here. What specific model of belief formation, sensory processing and action planning are you assuming?

This is what I meant with the statement "an infinite amount of other false beliefs instead that allow them to survive". If we think about how many possible beliefs you could hold along with a certain neurological physiology that produces biologically advantageous behavior versus the one true belief of what is actually happening we can then say that it is far more likely for cognitive faculties to hold a false belief than a true belief on N&E.

And if we think a bit harder, look at how unlikely it would be to generate a set of such false beliefs that all magically happen to work together to consistently generate behaviors with survival advantages. That would take so many unbelievable coincidences that the odds seem low (or inscrutable, at least). The more likely developmental path would be an organism which survives because their behavior is based on a reasonably accurate mental model of the world around them.

Then instead of a nearly infinite amount of lucky coincidences of false beliefs that miraculously lead to advantageous behavior you have a simple stimulus-response feedback. We know the latter exists - do you have any examples of organisms which succeed using the former? If not, I'm not sure why we should grant that assumption just to make your argument work?

 

[DogmaHunter]

It produces results, but to label them 'succesful' is begging the question.

No, the results speak for themselves.
If you build a GPS system based on the findings of physics (relativity), then it works.
If you do not then that GPS will not work properly: it will get your location wrong and as a result it will fail to guide you to your destination.

Ah, but this is adding information to your original statement which merely pointed to its existence.

Because I didn't consider I needed to mention the obvious previously.
Apparantly I was wrong about that. When I talk about the actual existance of something, I kind of imply that it demonstrably exists and that it is not just some type of "belief".

So you agree your initial reasoning was deficient then in this instance.

I do not. Instead, I'll agree that apparantly on this site, I need to state the obvious all the time because apparantly these things aren't so obvious to certain people on here.

Just to point out though, Medicine in general and Psychiatry are not scientific systems.

/facepalm

Do you know what the term 'psychosis' means?

Yes.

It means a disconnection from reality

Actually, I'ld say it refers to an accute episode of reality distortion wich is characterised by hallucination (visual, auditory,...). Such an episode usually happens in context of a psychiatric disorder like schizofrenia etc. But it doesn't have to.

How do we determine reality though?

Through empirical independend testing.

Anti-psychotic medicines fall in two classes. These are typicals and atypicals, which broadly act on dopamine receptors and 5HT receptors. No antipsychotic has ever been found that does not act on d2 receptors however. These receptors are related to emotion and perception and no connection to reasoning as such has been demonstrated outside of associations to depressive or manic states and even here the evidence is ambigious.

Considering the fact that anti-psychotics help greatly in either getting a psychotic episode "under control" or having it end, seems pretty good evidence that it works.

Did I mention that a closed loved one suffers from chronic paranoid psychosis? I witnessed it up close and was there every step of the way on the road to recovery.

I have first hand experience seeing how these medicines worked.
Now, she is on a "mainenance" dose and probably will remain on one for the rest of her life.
After the first episode, she was fine for over 2 years and it was decided to try and break down the maintenance dose week by week until there was none left.

2 months later she relapsed.

The theory of HOW psychosis emerges is very much up in the air, from glutamate-derived pathways through genetic susceptibility though psychological triggering in susceptible patients.

Yep.

Such broad statements that you are making is simply poor understanding of the literature.

What "broad statements"? I don't think I ever said that anti-psychotics cure anything. What I said was that anti-psychotics are currently the best we got. As in: it currently has the best trackrecord in helping people with such disorders.

I'ld sure love it if it would get refined / improved / replaced with something better. As medication, anti-psychotics are rather heavy with, in some cases, rather nasty side effects. But it's still better then the alternative of full-blown psychosis and all the nasty stuff that comes with it.

As to cognitive function, ever heard of neuroplasticity? The brain adapts according to what pathways are used and in what manner. Long term antipsychotics cause improvement in cognitive function, as does psychosis cause worsening, but this is through the brain strengthening or demyelinating the relevant neuronal axons. Whether the drugs cause this we simply don't know. It may be the apsychotic state that allows correction, allows neuroplastic regeneration as likely as any pharmacologic action. Similarly with psychosis, which may be the trigger but not root cause of cognitive decline. It is a bit of a catch 22.

I don't think I ever pointed to a cause. I merely spoke of the demonstrable correlation of untreated psychosis and brain damage - which you seem to agree exists.

CBT reverses the cognitive deterioration and helps people realise when entering a new psychosis? How is this not treating the underlying illness?

Because they still enter a new psychosis..........
Treating the underlying illness would mean that the symptoms thereof no longer manifest. Which would in turn mean that the subject wouldn't need to learn how to recognise the first signals, since it simply wouldn't occur anymore.

It's not "treating the underlying illness". It's more like learning about and arming yourself to deal with it more effectively. You're not "cured". You're just better equipped in dealing with it.

I don't understand your objection to what I said.
Anyway, many studies have shown that CBT is useful and advantageous in all stages of psychosis, acute or chronic. No psychiatric institution on this earth does not offer psychological treatment concommittently with medication, so to champion the one over the other here seems foolish. As stated above, thought form is not altered by medication. We cannot suddenly stop a depressive from interpreting things in the most negative light possible or a paranoid schizophrenic from associating things to his deusions by medications alone, nor can medication suddenly evaporate delusions. If this were the case, then we would inject risperdal in casualty and send people on their way, instead of having to admit them for weeks at a time for multiple therapies to take effect.

I think you aren't recognising the very wide gradations of such disorders. Not everyone that has a psychotic episode requires being admitted.

The evidence for a purely neurological basis is simply lacking however.

I'ld say that the ONLY evidence we have, is for a purely neurological basis.
We don't know much about the brain, sure. Lot's of stuff left to learn, sure.
In fact, compared to how deep our knowledge of other organs runs, I'ld actually be fine by saying that we have "no clue" about how the brain works.

Nonetheless, there is exactly zero reason to think that awareness/consiousness/reasoning/what-have-you is located somewhere else.

All the evidence we have at our disposal, points at the brain. Even if it is just a "little evidence" (debateable imo, but whatever) - all of it points in one direction.

Why would we assume something besides the physical brain as the root/origine/underlying mechanism of these things?

Professionals don't really know how thought forms or functions. Hence they are trying to figure it out

Yes. And where are they looking to learn about it? Your pinky? Your big toe?
It wouldn't by the brain, by any chance, would it?

To pretend they already have to some extent is laughable.

I didn't say that they understand the brain. I said that they agree that the brain is where they should be looking to get those answers.

I am very sorry for you. There are few things more damaging then mental illness in those close to you. I have seen this first hand in my own near relations and in my professional aspect as a doctor.

I would suggest though that you should encourage CBT and not just place all hope in medications alone. A multimodal approach is always more effective in these cases. I have attached a systemic review which strongly supports its efficacy here.

Cognitive behaviour therapy for schizophrenia

Thanks.

She does CBT and it certainly helps in terms of coping with it, recognising early symptoms and overall "recovery" from an episode, wich obviously can be extremely traumatising. What I'm saying is that the medication is absolutely essential.

CBT alone wouldn't work. Medication alone would work in terms of treatment of the accute symptoms. And indeed a combination of both is the best.

The point is that without the medication, CBT does little to nothing.

 

[DogmaHunter]

That isn't an answer to the OP.

Then I don't understand the OP I'm afraid.

You cannot provide an argument for the reliability of your cognitive faculties as you are using your cognitive faculties to provide the argument.

Because I have no other choice. I can't reason or think with someone else's brain.
The best I can do is test my reasoning against reality and see if it matches.

It is self-referential and begging the question.

I disagree. If you have an idea constructed in your brain and you wish to see if it is accurate, you're going to have to test it outside of your brain, in actual reality. And preferably as independently as possible, so it might be wise to have others review and double-check your work.

The results will show if your test is succesfull or not.

How else do you propose to see if an idea you have in your head is reflective of reality?

You need to provide a method where humans would be more likely to form true beliefs than false beliefs on evolutionary naturalism.

Evolution doesn't care about what is true. Evolution cares about what works in a given environment. If believing nonsense somehow increases your survivability and reproductive success, then believing nonsense will be favored by natural selection.

I'll point out again that that is exactly what we see in certain contexts in the animal kingdom. All animals, especially those that are considered lunch by certain species, are very prone to the cognitive error known as the false positive.

The idea is simple: you hear the leaves of a bush make a noise... is it just the wind, or is it a dangerous predator sneaking up on you? Those who just assume it is a predator will run away. If it IS a predator, then those more prone to engage in that false positive will be more likely to survive.

This is the basis of superstition.

Evolution doesn't necessarily lead to perfect rationality or a scientific approach to try and explain the world. Evolution first and foremost leads to being better equipped for survival and reproduction. In some cases, that means that being more prone to a certain type of cognition error, like the false positive, will increase your "fitness".

We humans have that tendency. The way to work around that, is by testing your ideas against reality and not just believing the first thing that pops into your head.

 

[ExodusMe]

I'm not sure what you're saying here. What specific model of belief formation, sensory processing and action planning are you assuming?

On materialism, the model would consist of your neurology producing the adaptive behavior and the belief. The Neurology is adaptive in the sense that it causes behavior that is biologically advantageous to the species. The belief produced by your neurology would be an event or structure in your nervous system.

A good example might be a frog on a lily pad who sees a fly come by. The frogs neurology would cause the frog's tongue to flick out and catch the fly for food. This would be the adaptive behavior produced by the frog's cognitive faculties. The belief produced by the frog would be irrelevant as long as they catch the fly.

And if we think a bit harder, look at how unlikely it would be to generate a set of such false beliefs that all magically happen to work together to consistently generate behaviors with survival advantages. That would take so many unbelievable coincidences that the odds seem low (or inscrutable, at least). The more likely developmental path would be an organism which survives because their behavior is based on a reasonably accurate mental model of the world around them.

Then instead of a nearly infinite amount of lucky coincidences of false beliefs that miraculously lead to advantageous behavior you have a simple stimulus-response feedback. We know the latter exists - do you have any examples of organisms which succeed using the former? If not, I'm not sure why we should grant that assumption just to make your argument work?

Yes, but why would a creature need to have an accurate mental model of the world around him if his neurology is producing adaptive behavior for survival?

The question isn't whether true beliefs are more adaptive than false beliefs, but in what sense would the content of your beliefs matter? The problem is that the content of your beliefs do not have an appropriate causal role in the model provided by N&E.

I probably have not been very clear throughout my explanation of the argument by AP (I am a layman), but hopefully this clarifies the point I am trying to make.

Then I don't understand the OP I'm afraid.
Because I have no other choice. I can't reason or think with someone else's brain.
The best I can do is test my reasoning against reality and see if it matches.
I disagree. If you have an idea constructed in your brain and you wish to see if it is accurate, you're going to have to test it outside of your brain, in actual reality. And preferably as independently as possible, so it might be wise to have others review and double-check your work.

The results will show if your test is succesfull or not.

How else do you propose to see if an idea you have in your head is reflective of reality?

I am not doubting our cognitive faculties are reliable. I agree with you. Based on the experience we have of reality and the assessments humans can make we have demonstrated well that our cognitive faculties are reliable. Further, the argument isn't proposing that our cognitive faculties are not reliable. It is proposing that if you believe N&E then you have a defeater for your belief that your cognitive faculties are reliable, therefore, you are either not rational in accepting N&E or you need to give up your belief in N&E.

Evolution doesn't care about what is true. Evolution cares about what works in a given environment. If believing nonsense somehow increases your survivability and reproductive success, then believing nonsense will be favored by natural selection.

I'll point out again that that is exactly what we see in certain contexts in the animal kingdom. All animals, especially those that are considered lunch by certain species, are very prone to the cognitive error known as the false positive.

The idea is simple: you hear the leaves of a bush make a noise... is it just the wind, or is it a dangerous predator sneaking up on you? Those who just assume it is a predator will run away. If it IS a predator, then those more prone to engage in that false positive will be more likely to survive.

This is the basis of superstition.

Evolution doesn't necessarily lead to perfect rationality or a scientific approach to try and explain the world. Evolution first and foremost leads to being better equipped for survival and reproduction. In some cases, that means that being more prone to a certain type of cognition error, like the false positive, will increase your "fitness".

We humans have that tendency. The way to work around that, is by testing your ideas against reality and not just believing the first thing that pops into your head.

Seems like we agree a little bit here, but at the end you make the error of appealing to your cognitive faculties to prove the reliability of your cognitive faculties. If you believe your cognitive faculties are reliable, then you need to give up your belief in N&E or you have a defeater for your belief that your cognitive faculties are reliable as the belief in N&E does not support your conclusion that your cognitive faculties are reliable.

Thanks for the discussion guys

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

Not really, we term it a mental disorder because it obviously doesn't function.

No, we term things as such based on culture. Schizophrenics function quite well in indigenous African populations where they are said to be uThwasa or called by the Ancestors - When I was working in Psychiatry we had to discharge people I thoroughly considered psychotic because of this cultural construct and my superiors said that because it is culturally appropriate, we cannot consider it a mental disorder. This is why homosexuals or uppity slaves or women, could have been considered mentally ill in the past, but no longer are. No new discoveries brought this change about at all.

The problem you are having is that the "worldview" of the schizophrenic is judged by inter-subjective relationships, that you seem to think don't happen when we have other ideas like, "logic".

What are you talking about? Of course we determine his dysfunction by intersubjective means. It is you who would undermine the validity of such methods by rendering our inferences invalid. Hence as I said, leaving the Schizophrenics view as valid as our own. We could still say he was crazy and we are not, and likely will do so, but would have no grounds to, really.

Without other peoples help the schizophrenic would probably be pretty lost. Where as, we are not quite as lost because our brains don't suffer from that kind of delusion and they function quite well in the world they exist within.



And when you are wrong it simply won't work. Just like the schizophrenic. And if you have no way to realize this, you will be wrong. If it matters that you are wrong, you will be wrong in a punishing way as reality is not very forgiving.

Which is of course why we develop systems of thinking to avoid such problems in thinking.

Petitio Principii.

It is not "by definition" irrational, that is just your misunderstanding of it.

If the process had no method for self correction, it would of course never come to any order.

If the process developed brains then it came to invent what you know as rationality.

If rationality comes from the interrelationship between materially derived brains and material reality, then that is simply the case.

How this circumstance becomes "better" if we add in some super-naturalism, is beyond me though.

Please explain how irrational matter can create reason as such. A belief fully explicable by irrational causes is unreasoned, as holding naturalism necessitates. An unreasoned belief cannot be rational as rational implies being in accord with reason. Therefore it is irrational.

Quantum and string theory are about as abstract as it gets. So, if the universe were not incredibly consistent, we would not be able to get to that level of abstraction or theory.

Yet their existence proves the universe is not as consistent as previously stated, so arguing we achieve usable data by observation of consistency falls flat.

The level of validation needed for 1 + 1 = 2 already exists, just not on they hyper rational level you would like.

Pray tell, what proposition validates 1 + 1 = 2, when Mathematics itself cannot do so?

But again, you have to understand that rationality is justified by practice and not the other way around.

I agree, which renders Naturalism irrational by the practice of logic that has been so successful elsewhere in human history.

You would be unable to determine it absolutely, which is exactly the case.

I agree, which is why I say either don't accept Naturalism or admit none of our reasoning can be shown valid if you do.

No system can be shown to be valid outside of it's own fundamental basis.

Agreed, but it has yet to be shown that this is the fundamental basis of our reasoning.

The soundness either holds up in practice or it doesn't, that is all that can matter.

Exactly, and Naturalism has failed in this by not holding up in practice to the rules of logic used to derive it by.

To perceive something you have to observe it. For something to be evident, it has to be observed. For something to be "self-evident" you must mean that it is "observed to be self evident".

Disingenuous. You don't need to 'observe' something to perceive it, for do we observe our thoughts or perceive them with our senses? We need to observe exterior reality to perceive it maybe, but we were talking about abstract axioms here. So I can observe something to be self-evident, but this does not mean it is an externalisation at all nor derived from 'observation' in the sense you previously used it. You are playing with words here and multifarious interpretations of the meaning of 'observe' which amounts to sophistry.

Languages are developed by minds and the language to describe logic is developed by minds. The logic that the minds are describing may exist outside the minds but not nessisarily how minds describe it.

An immaterial mind has the same problem as a material one so there is no escaping the problem. As, our minds would have to describe whatever object you surmise whether it be "objective reality" or "God", imperfectly.

"invalid" has no meaning here if indeed logic was developed by material minds that declare such logic "invalid" it's just a self referential loop.

So what this means is that by our human-constructed view of logic, Naturalism, which is supposedly derived therefrom, invalidates it. Yes, a self-referential loop, a circle of invalidation, which of course renders it all unsound, which was my whole point.

On your other point, to quote GK Chesterton:
"Thus, even those who appreciate the metaphysical depth of Thomism in other matters have expressed surprise that he does not deal at all with what many now think the main metaphysical question; whether we can prove that the primary act of recognition of any reality is real. The answer is that St. Thomas recognised instantly, what so many modern sceptics have begun to suspect rather laboriously; that a man must either answer that question in the affirmative, or else never answer any question, never ask any question, never even exist intellectually, to answer or to ask. I suppose it is true in a sense that a man can be a fundamental sceptic, but he cannot be anything else: certainly not even a defender of fundamental scepticism. If a man feels that all the movements of his own mind are meaningless, then his mind is meaningless, and he is meaningless; and it does not mean anything to attempt to discover his meaning. Most fundamental sceptics appear to survive, because they are not consistently sceptical and not at all fundamental. They will first deny everything and then admit something, if for the sake of argument--or often rather of attack without argument. I saw an almost startling example of this essential frivolity in a professor of final scepticism, in a paper the other day. A man wrote to say that he accepted nothing but Solipsism, and added that he had often wondered it was not a more common philosophy. Now Solipsism simply means that a man believes in his own existence, but not in anybody or anything else. And it never struck this simple sophist, that if his philosophy was true, there obviously were no other philosophers to profess it."

But they do "work". They work quite well, so your absolutist rationalism is just a rather silly idea, not capable of comprehending it's own basis.

By all means, explain to me how they "work" then. I have explained in depth how the snake eats its tale, so I await an explanation why this is not so.

We do not need to know that logic is absolutely sound to use it no.

It must be sound enough to accurately describe the system it is describing, well enough to function within it.

Then we cannot affirm it as sound as such, and all human thought is provisional. Thus no claim on reality can be made whatsoever. For unsound systems function well enough, like Astrology or chiropractic, and Science and Naturalism has thus been rendered of their ilk or at least unable to show itself to have greater validity.

Our experience in reality is and can be the only validator for logic that we will ever have.

You don't actually have a solution here for logic always requiring a premise more simple than you can possibly justify, that is the nature of the beast. Reality and our experience of it comes BEFORE any axiom can be formed.

Petitio Principii.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

No, the results speak for themselves.
If you build a GPS system based on the findings of physics (relativity), then it works.
If you do not then that GPS will not work properly: it will get your location wrong and as a result it will fail to guide you to your destination.

Petitio Principii. This is an assumption that our physics correlates to our results, that our inferences are true, which Naturalism cannot show to be the case.

Because I didn't consider I needed to mention the obvious previously.
Apparantly I was wrong about that. When I talk about the actual existance of something, I kind of imply that it demonstrably exists and that it is not just some type of "belief".

Ah, but how can mental health problems 'demonstrably' exist when we cannot establish the validity of our experience itself?

Yes.



Actually, I'ld say it refers to an accute episode of reality distortion wich is characterised by hallucination (visual, auditory,...). Such an episode usually happens in context of a psychiatric disorder like schizofrenia etc. But it doesn't have to.

I'll alert Kaplan and Sadock, the Psychiatric fraternity and the DSM V to your new definition.

Through empirical independend testing.

Perhaps I should theatrically write 'Facepalm' here?

Considering the fact that anti-psychotics help greatly in either getting a psychotic episode "under control" or having it end, seems pretty good evidence that it works.

Did I mention that a closed loved one suffers from chronic paranoid psychosis? I witnessed it up close and was there every step of the way on the road to recovery.

I have first hand experience seeing how these medicines worked.
Now, she is on a "mainenance" dose and probably will remain on one for the rest of her life.
After the first episode, she was fine for over 2 years and it was decided to try and break down the maintenance dose week by week until there was none left.

2 months later she relapsed.

I have no idea what your point is here. Of course they worked, I explained to you how they work and why this did not necessarily imply a purely organic basis based on other physiologic events and medication's effects.

What "broad statements"? I don't think I ever said that anti-psychotics cure anything. What I said was that anti-psychotics are currently the best we got. As in: it currently has the best trackrecord in helping people with such disorders.

I'ld sure love it if it would get refined / improved / replaced with something better. As medication, anti-psychotics are rather heavy with, in some cases, rather nasty side effects. But it's still better then the alternative of full-blown psychosis and all the nasty stuff that comes with it.

No, you denied the efficacy of CBT and psychological strategies. All psychiatric units on earth use a mixed multimodal treatment that incorporates these in addition to antipsychotics. Antipsychotics on their own are not nearly as effective. You seemed to imply that thoughtform disorder gets corrected by them as well; I think you said "that is just false"? There is no evidence to this effect.

So yes, you are a layman it is true, so I don't expect you to be very clued up on the literature, but I supplied you with a systematic review article which you seemed to not even bother to read, and your broad statements and claims are patently not in line with modern Psychiatric knowledge.

Because they still enter a new psychosis..........
Treating the underlying illness would mean that the symptoms thereof no longer manifest. Which would in turn mean that the subject wouldn't need to learn how to recognise the first signals, since it simply wouldn't occur anymore.

It's not "treating the underlying illness". It's more like learning about and arming yourself to deal with it more effectively. You're not "cured". You're just better equipped in dealing with it.

It is treating it. It is a Chronic disease, like Hypertension. You need to continue taking your medication or lifestyle-modification strategies to deal with it. Treating does not mean "the underlying symptoms no longer manifest" as humans are dynamic changing organisms that grow old and adapt. This is why follow up appointments and adjusting medications are mandatory for chronic illnesses. A hypertensive being treated still has cardiovascular dysfunction, why do you think psychiatric illness is different?

I think you aren't recognising the very wide gradations of such disorders. Not everyone that has a psychotic episode requires being admitted.

I made this exact point with my explanation of a mildly psychotic state in an earlier post to you. This is an irrelevant observation to what I wrote here, which championed the necessity of multimodal strategies.

I'ld say that the ONLY evidence we have, is for a purely neurological basis.
We don't know much about the brain, sure. Lot's of stuff left to learn, sure.
In fact, compared to how deep our knowledge of other organs runs, I'ld actually be fine by saying that we have "no clue" about how the brain works.

Nonetheless, there is exactly zero reason to think that awareness/consiousness/reasoning/what-have-you is located somewhere else.

All the evidence we have at our disposal, points at the brain. Even if it is just a "little evidence" (debateable imo, but whatever) - all of it points in one direction.

Why would we assume something besides the physical brain as the root/origine/underlying mechanism of these things?

You want to assume something to be true which we cannot determine scientifically? The irony is palpable.

Yes. And where are they looking to learn about it? Your pinky? Your big toe?
It wouldn't by the brain, by any chance, would it?

Relevance of this flippant remark?

Thanks.

She does CBT and it certainly helps in terms of coping with it, recognising early symptoms and overall "recovery" from an episode, wich obviously can be extremely traumatising. What I'm saying is that the medication is absolutely essential.

CBT alone wouldn't work. Medication alone would work in terms of treatment of the accute symptoms. And indeed a combination of both is the best.

The point is that without the medication, CBT does little to nothing.

I agree, the medication is essential. I never said one must only do CBT or that this is all that is required. But CBT does not do "little to nothing", as multiple EBM studies and systematic reviews attest. For someone who tends to talk about empiricism and observation, you have a funny way of completely ignoring their results in this case.

 

[KCfromNC]

On materialism, the model would consist of your neurology producing the adaptive behavior and the belief. The Neurology is adaptive in the sense that it causes behavior that is biologically advantageous to the species. The belief produced by your neurology would be an event or structure in your nervous system.

A good example might be a frog on a lily pad who sees a fly come by. The frogs neurology would cause the frog's tongue to flick out and catch the fly for food. This would be the adaptive behavior produced by the frog's cognitive faculties. The belief produced by the frog would be irrelevant as long as they catch the fly.

You seem to be asserting that beliefs are somehow separate from cognitive faculties, but I don't see why.

Yes, but why would a creature need to have an accurate mental model of the world around him if his neurology is producing adaptive behavior for survival?

Never said it did, just that it is helpful to have one and way more likely to develop than a wildly inaccurate model which just coincidentally happens to always lead to beneficial behaviors.

The problem is that the content of your beliefs do not have an appropriate causal role in the model provided by N&E.

I still have no idea why you assert this.

It is proposing that if you believe N&E then you have a defeater for your belief that your cognitive faculties are reliable

I thought you were just arguing that beliefs don't play a causal role. So my beliefs in N&E can't play a causal role in defeating anything in my internal model of reality, at least if we accept your unstated premises. Which tells me there's something very wrong about them.

Seems like we agree a little bit here, but at the end you make the error of appealing to your cognitive faculties to prove the reliability of your cognitive faculties.

I do? Where? Please be specific.

If you believe your cognitive faculties are reliable, then you need to give up your belief in N&E or you have a defeater for your belief that your cognitive faculties are reliable as the belief in N&E does not support your conclusion that your cognitive faculties are reliable.

Or give up on the idea that logical deduction from questionable premises is any way to learn about reality.

 

[KCfromNC]

Petitio Principii. This is an assumption that our physics correlates to our results, that our inferences are true, which Naturalism cannot show to be the case.

Just like any other system. But on the plus side, naturalism has the advantage over many other approaches - it actually works. You know, modern agriculture, medicine, the internet, and so on. Some people might be impressed with the thought that maybe we can't be 100% absolutely certain we're not brains in a vat or whatever the objection is. Even if they really believe that idea they spend a lot of time pretending it isn't true when interacting with what the rest of us know as reality.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

Just like any other system. But on the plus side, naturalism has the advantage over many other approaches - it actually works. You know, modern agriculture, medicine, the internet, and so on. Some people might be impressed with the thought that maybe we can't be 100% absolutely certain we're not brains in a vat or whatever the objection is. Even if they really believe that idea they spend a lot of time pretending it isn't true when interacting with what the rest of us know as reality.

Naturalism is not the same thing as Science or Empiricism. Touting their accomplishments as if those of Naturalism is seriously flawed. Naturalism is a metaphysical claim, the others method that can and has been historically applied without ascribing to it.

 

[KCfromNC]

Naturalism is not the same thing as Science or Empiricism.

What non-natural things does science study?

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

What non-natural things does science study?

Not really a relevant question to what I said.
Scientific method is a system of enquiry that can only be applied to what can be measured, which thus largely necessitates Methodological Naturalism, an attempt to explain and test within nature. Methodological Naturalism is a different animal entirely from Ontological or Metaphysical Naturalism, and this is quite a clumsy attempt to conflate the two.

 

[Motherofkittens]

So if god did design us shouldnt all our beliefs be accurate. But clearly that is not the case. Some are, some aren't. For example people being afraid of spiders. Most of these people are afriad not of being bitten, but by how creepy spiders look. Most spiders aren't dangerous either. Why didn't God instil in us the real fear of being bitten and not just creeped out and why did my he make us afraid of all spiders instead of just the ones that are poisonous?

 

[2PhiloVoid]

So if god did design us shouldnt all our beliefs be accurate[?] But clearly that is not the case. Some are, some aren't. For example people being afraid of spiders. Most of these people are afriad not of being bitten, but by how creepy spiders look. Most spiders aren't dangerous either. Why didn't God instil in us the real fear of being bitten and not just creeped out and why did my he make us afraid of all spiders instead of just the ones that are poisonous?

No, because even if God designed us, to say that He did so isn't also to say that He "cloned" us or that we are all individually fitted with identical perceptual, cognitive, and epistemological mental equipment.

And some of us are afraid of 'all' spiders .... and personally for me, the only good spider is a dead one. (I know, I know....that's not a very environmentally friendly thing for me to say.)

Something to think about, though, ay?

 

[quatona]

No, because even if God designed us, to say that He did so isn't also to say that He "cloned" us or that we are all individually fitted with identical perceptual, cognitive, and epistemological mental equipment.

So when the topic of this thread is "Without a God there are certain logical and practical problems with validating our perception, cognition and epistemology" your objection here tells me that we have the same problems with there being a God?

 

[2PhiloVoid]

So when the topic of this thread is "Without a God there are certain logical and practical problems with validating our perception, cognition and epistemology" your objection here tells me that we have the same problems with there being a God?

....yep. And it's interesting to me how the study of epistemology just kind of .... works it out that way for everyone.