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Friday, May 8, 2009

I'm a 'Punk'

It's official: I'm a 'punk!'


I had intended never to identify to you, Gentle Reader, just who is the person I had today decided is a fool. But, it seems, he demands something of the sort.

The man is a professional philosopher (*) whose blog I have been reading, off and on, for a number of years. I've learned a lot from him ... and until recently, have had nothing but respect for him and his ability to think clearly.

But, hey! I'm a "punk" who makes "scurrilous comment[s];" should I not act the part?

Fear not, Gentle Reader, I'm not going to have a personal grudge match pissing contest with this person. I know how boring, and how quickly, that would be to you; and frankly, even if I didn't care about the effect on you, it would quickly bore me also.

(*) Concerning philosophers in general -- many of them seem to go out of their way to make philosophy a worthless thing.


So, let's get this over with --
Recently, on Mr William Vallicella's "Maverick Philosopher" blog, I had said this:
Do not all assertions of 'emergence' or 'supervenience' depend upon and simply restate the assertion that "The whole may be greater than the sum of the parts?"

And, is not that assertion exactly to assert that "1 + 1 may = 4 (or some other non-2 sum) in some circumstances?"


A whole may never be greater that the sum of its parts. When we mistakenly believe that we have identified a whole greater than the sum of its parts, it will always be the case that we have missed something or misidentified something.

Now, a friend of Mr Vallicella (one Mr Peter Lupu, whom I first "met" that day and whom I hope will continue to discuss the matter with me here on my blog) decided that I don't know what I'm talking about and that he was going to correct me. And that's OK with me ... depending, of course, upon just how one sets about doing it.

So, Mr Lupu and I had a couple of exchanges; a mere start. When I quickly checked back to Mr Vallicella's blog this morning (well, by now it was yesterday morning) there was a very lengthy post to me from Mr Lupu. Now, understand, I do detect an air of "I'm gonna school you" in Mr Lupu's posts to me (and it may be more apparent to you in his after-the-fact post), but it's not nastily so, and believe I'm able to ignore it.

But, anyway, there was this long post which I didn't have time then to read, much less respond to ... and which is not a mere hand-waving and blowing-off of an idea which Mr Lupu rejects. Perhaps you don't realize, Gentle Reader, just how rare that is. So, I wanted to let Mr Lupu know how greatly I appreciate, even if we never agree, that he's engaging and not simply blowing off what I'd said. I posted this to Mr Lupu:
Mr Lupu,
First off, I want to tell you how much I appreciate that you are seriously grappling with this. I cannot begin to express how how greatly I appreciate that you are engaging an idea you reject. That you are arguing for a false, and necessarily false, belief (and that I don't expect that you will recognize the error today; perhaps in a few months you'll work your way through it) pales in light of the fact that you are arguing and thinking and seriously engaging the matter.

Few of our beliefs are held in isolation, they generally are intertwined with other beliefs. So, disgarding some individual belief, even one clearly false, is no simple thing -- one has to work through the process of disentangling it, which process frequently calls into question other beliefs.

I can't do this working-through-it for you (nor you for me, were it the case that I am in error) -- I can't tell you that you've had enough time to solve the question. It's your belief-complex; and you have to do the work, and see the connections, and do the disentangling and the rejecting or salvaging of other of your beliefs.

Which is to say, this belief you appear to hold (else, why are you denying its denial?) is in error, and you are resisting seeing the error -- and that's OK (depending upon how goes about that resistence, of course). We can't discard our beliefs simply because someone else says they're false; that would be irrational. Likewise, as a practical matter, we can't discard our beliefs simply because someone has presented an argument, even a very good argument, that a particular belief we hold is false and we presently are unable to see a counter-argument to that argument.

Rather, we must be convinced -- we must freely give assent -- before we can work through discarding the current belief or adopting a new belief.

-------
Perhaps coincidentally, this same general topic came up a few days ago on Victor Reppert's Dangerous Idea blog (in this thread).

What is different about the two exchanges, that of you and me, and that of me and the two persons at Mr Reppert's blog? They are in error and you are in error and I am not at all shy about asserting that. So what is different?

When I got back online that evening, there was waiting for me this message from Mr Vallicella:
Ilion,
Please leave no more comments on this site. You have just shown that you are unteachable. Peter Lupu very patiently went through your confused and dogmatic comments and made a reasonable response to them. But in your last response to him you simply ignore his points -- all of which are correct -- and instead adopt, quite absurdly, a superior tone, as if he is the one that needs to think harder when you are the one who needs to think harder.

So no more comments from you on pain of DELETE and BLOCK.

I wonder, does this make me a 'fascist'?

And I then said this to Mr Vallicella (no link, as he has deleted the post):
Well!

Mr Lupu, if you'd care to continue discussing this with me, please feel free to drop by here: http://iliocentrism.blogspot.com/
And, if you don't, that's OK, too. I'll be fine, either way.

I'll start a new item in a day or so dedicated to the subject and containing what we two have said so far.

........
Mr Vallicella,
You have just shown yourself to be an ignorant fool ... who can't be bothered even to attempt to comprehend what he reads (*).

I shall, of course, honor your demand. This is, after all, your blog.

At the same time, I shall, from time to time, on my own blog criticise some things you say, especially the foolish things. And you, having shown yourself to be a fool, can be counted upon to begin whinging that I have an obsession with you.

But in fact, if I do have an obsession, it is in the twin goals of calling people to reason properly and to stop being foolish.


(*) In truth, I had suspected for some time that you are a fool. And I became fairly certain of it the other day (see your superior and dogmatic performance here), but as of this I can't pretend otherwise. You are what you are.

Don't imagine, Gentle Reader, that I will claim I did not mean to yank Mr Vallicella chain -- yanking fools' chains is what I do. As I keep telling you, I am not "nice." I have no intention to be "nice." Ever.

After deleting the above (which, of course, one fully expects), Mr Vallicella said this:
[quoting someone else]

That's the essence of it. The trouble with punks like the one I just banned (and whose last scurrilous comment I deleted) is that they exemplify the anti-Socratic property. Socrates' wisdom consisted in a knowledge of his ignorance: he knew that he didn't know. The anti-Socratics 'know' what they don't know. Good examples are the followers of the Rand ideology as we saw back in January and February. People like this have no idea what philosophy is.

Wasn't that all so very interesting, Gentle Reader?

5 comments:

Ilíon said...

A Certain Fool: How Cyberpunks Argue

A Certain Cyberpunk: Well then, you really are going to enjoy how I work you over.

But, you could always just stop acting the fool. Can you not?

Ilíon said...

First off, Gentle Reader, I will state that I know I should be working on the 'A whole may be greater than the sum of its parts' thread.

But, at the same time, showing Mr Vallicella how great a fool he is behaving needs to be done too. And, it needs to be done soon ... if weeks from now I were still ridiculing his behavior as it relates directly to me, that would give the lie to my assurance to you that I am having a pissing contest with him.


Wm. Vallicella: (who, while vastly more educated than I am, is nonetheless a fool) "Peter Lupu very patiently went through your confused and dogmatic comments and made a reasonable response to them."

Now, this claim isn't *really* true. In truth, what Mr Lupu did is simply reassert his assertion that the notion of 'emergence' is not illogical and is, in fact, true. Oh, that and try to assert that the burden of proof lies entirely with me, who denies the notion of 'emergence.'

Mr Lupu's response to me was not much better than his hand-waving response to Deogolwulf's beautiful and elegant reductio ad absurdum of the motion that minds are equivalent to computer programs, which is to say, to "formal axiomatic systems." [Recall, I did say that I'd detected a note of "I'm gonna school you!" all along; but it was such that I was willing to tolerate it].

But this isn't about Mr Lupu's response(s); I'll get to that in the appropriate thread. This is about mocking Mr Vallicella's calumnies about me: he has slandered me; in return, I am going to hold up his behavior for public examination and ridicule. And, since it appears that he is checking this, I'm satisfied if that 'public' encompasses no one but him.

So, remember, the following isn't *about* Mr Lupu's behavior, it is about Mr Vallicella's behavior and claims.

Deogolwulf presented an argument against a mechanist or computationalist theory of mind (see here, you owe it to yourself to grasp what he said).

And Mr Lupu "refuted" Deogolwulf's argument thusly: "Your proof assumes classical logic in which the consequence relation is *explosive*: i.e., from P and ~P any proposition Q (expressible within the formal system) follows. This feature of classical logic (and intuitionistic logic as well) seems to be counterintuitive because there may be systems that while contain a contradiction are, nonetheless, not trivial (i.e., everything follows within such a system). Paraconsistent logics are designed to formulate a consequence relation that is not explosive, thus allow for a system to contain a contradiction without rendering it trivial."

Did you, Gentle Reader, grasp the sheer hand-waving audacity of that? Or, to echo Mr Vallicella, the "confused and dogmatic" nature of it?

I'll put that into English: "Your proof assumes that a proposition (or complex of propositions) which generates contradictions (and especially self-contradictions) is necessarily illogical, and necessarily false. However, since there have been invented systems of "logic" in which a proposition (or complex of propositions) which generates contradictions can nonetheless be considered "logical," we can logically and rationally disregard your proof."

Now, as reality just happens to work out, "classical logic" is *real* logic. "Paraconsistent logics" are games; interesting, perhaps, to some persons, but pointless in trying to identify (and eliminate) erroneous thinking.


Now, let's pretend that I really am as Mr Vallicella has asserted. So what? He doesn't seem to mind it when a friend behaves as he asserts I behave. He appears to be asserting a double-standard in regard to reasoning and argumentation: one for those of whom he approves and another for everyone else. He appears to be intellectually dishonest: in short, a fool.

Ilíon said...

[The content of this post belongs in the previous post, but while writing the previous I'd forgot that I intended to include this further example and evidence of Mr Vallicella's apparent intellectual double-standard.]


Wm. Vallicella: (who, while perhaps more intelligent than I am, is nonetheless a fool) said this: "... Let's say you are a PoMo idiot who denies the existence of truth. What then could be the point of any discussion? To get closer to (nonexistent) truth? You say it's all power at bottom? Then I will exercise my blocking power with respect to you and your idiocy. Or perhaps you are a stupid leftist who thinks that 'religion is the problem' while making an exception for radical Islam. Then you are not only stupid but contemptible and cowardly to boot. Discussion is not what you need; you need therapy. Or perhaps you are an eliminativist in the philosophy of mind: you deny the existence of beliefs and desires. Then I believe you are beneath refutation and I desire that you go away. Or maybe you a sophistical qualia-denier like Daniel Dennett. Pinch yourself and then report back. Or adopt the 'intentional stance' with respect to yourself and self-ascribe some intelligent thoughts."

Now, understand, I am not at all disagreeing with anything in the quote, nor in the fuller blog-item from which it is extracted. I *do not* call Mr Vallicella 'intellectually dishonest' (i.e. a fool) because he has said this, but rather because he does not *mean* it.

His friend, Peter Lupu, is *behaving* exactly as would "a PoMo idiot who denies the existence of truth." That is, after all, the practical result of Mr Lupu's little hand-waving exercise: the denial of real and objective truth and/or the denial that we may know truth via logical reasoning.

His friend, Peter Lupu, is taking a position the result of which is *exactly* that of "an eliminativist in the philosophy of mind: [denying] the existence of beliefs and desires.." To be sure, Mr Lupu affirms with one side of his conflicted thought-processes the reality of "beliefs and desires;" but with the other side, with the side for which he *argues,* he denies this reality. In the pinch, which of these two conflicting and irreconcilable positions will Mr Lupu take? Please! Is there really any serious doubt that should events necessitate a resolution of the conflict he will affirm that which he asserts and for which he argues and deny that to which he merely assents? Does one not understand human nature?


And, for that matter, I had begun to notice over the past few weeks Mr Vallicella himself behaves in at least the manner of the "a PoMo idiot who denies the existence of truth." Oh, I don't mean blatantly so, and I may not be able to show it to you such that you too see it, due to its subtlty. Though, his behavior which sparked this set-to is an example of what I'm talking about.

Ilíon said...

I don't enjoy this, Gentle Reader, not by any means. This is a slog, this is something I must keep forcing myself to turn back to working at.

Ilíon said...

Here is an amusement. I've always had difficulty sleeping, and I'm getting to the age when men frequently find it more difficult to sleep then when they were young (yes, Gentle Reader, I am *old*).

But, when faced with a slog like this, I can (and do, and already have been) somehow *force* myself to sleep. It seems to be similar to how when I'm seriously ill I sleep, or have received the sort of injury inducing 'shock,' I sleep.