[MD] Probability

[ian glendinning]

All stuff I agree with in spirit Arlo ... your point about
pragmatically "absolute" statements being paradoxical I've taken up
already with Platt (again).

The "Brain in a vat" is a good thought experiment, but in shorthand it
overlooks the reality that much of our mental activity involves not
just the cerebral brain and spinal column as a system, but of course
all the hormonal, endocrine, "gut feeling" sensory feedback loops that
are part of that super system we call "mind" ... the vat would need to
be understood to include this extended system - but Dennett does a
geat job pushing that analogy to its conclusion in his essay.

I have a link to The False Mirror in my blog. I blogged several times
about the Magritte / Einstein / Pirsig / Escher / Hofstader / Bach /
Goedel connections. A search for Magritte on my blog should show up
the links.

Ian

.

On 7/17/06, Arlo J. Bensinger <ajb102 at psu.edu> wrote:
> Hi Ian (Case mentioned),
>
> Glad you liked "Who Am We?". I figured the mere mention of "poststructuralist"
> would have those trapped in modernity screaming the Nihilistic Boogeyman Song
> (not to mention she studied this in PARIS! Bloody French Commies...), which is
> why I harkened this back to James Carse, whose Finite and Infinite Games also
> speaks on the fracturedness of identity (as it relates to "roles").
>
> >From one who finds beauty in paradox and recursion to another, I continue to
> find it amusing that the "A Ha! You made an absolute statement about
> non-absoluteness" continues to be put out there. The very fact that we are
> trying to represent "reality" symbolically will mean, by virtue of what
> representae are, that the core will always consist of paradox and recursion. I
> am reminded of Margritte's famous "The False Mirror", which hangs (albeit in
> poster form, Warholist that I am) on the wall of my office (along with
> Gericault's "Shipwreck" and of course Feininger's "Barfuesserkirche II" (Church
> of the Minorities)). As the "eye" attempts to symbolically encode "what it
> sees", their will always be a core that remains a mystery. "Can an omnipotent,
> all-powerful God create a rock that He cannot lift?" Paradox. (I've heard one
> answer to this that says "He can do both. He can create the rock, and then he
> can lift it". Whatever that means.)
>
> Case's point on "beyond a reasonable doubt" is about as close as we can get to
> these "Absolute Truths". I'm not sure why its so difficult to grasp. There is a
> difference between making a statement that begins, "Although I am forced by a
> symbolic language to make the following statement that sounds like an absolute
> truth, I accept that there may or may not be a margin of error that would make
> the statement one day false..." and "Because we have to speak with language
> that forces us to make Absolute sounding Truth statements, that means there is
> without any doubt Absolute Truths..."
>
> "I was born". For example. Pragmatically, I accept it as "as absolute a
> statement as I can make". Which is quite different from "its absolutely true".
> Since I can't resolve the "Brain in a Vat" dilemma, I hold that my statement is
> really only provisional, "absolute" only in a pragmatic sense.
>
> Einstein (as quoted in ZMM) makes a similar case to Case's "absolute can only be
> in the "now"). "Evolution has shown that at any given moment out of all
> conceivable constructions a single one has always proved itself absolutely
> superior to the rest." This statement allows for what I'd call "relative
> absoluteness", that is, something may be "absolutely superior" at the "given
> moment", but that hardly makes it "absolutely superior" for all time. "Having
> coffee this morning" was "absolutely superior" for me than "not". But does this
> mean that "having coffee in the morning" is "always absolutely superior" than
> "not", for everyone, for all time? No.
>
> Anyway, I'm not sure why the impetus for some is to run away from paradox, or
> imply that it is some shortcoming of others. It is manifest at the core of our
> symbollically encoded experience. And my pop-culture reference from the day is
> from Spock (Star Trek, not Benjamin)...
>
> "The Gates to Truth are guarded by Paradox and Confusion. And if we attempt to
> enter by turning our backs on them, the Truth will remain closed behind us." (I
> think this was Star Trek: The Motion Picture)
>
>
>
>
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