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From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Rigorous Mortis
Message-ID: <1693@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 26-Sep-85 23:16:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.1693
Posted: Thu Sep 26 23:16:45 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 1-Oct-85 10:13:40 EDT
References: <136@l5.uucp> <1780@pyuxd.UUCP>
Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD
Lines: 69

In article <1780@pyuxd.UUCP> rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) writes:

>> Rich is trying to find an objective way of measuring whether or not I am
>> hungry. [LAURA]

>> but remember that I promised to be as unfuriating as
>> possible. So I say that I am hungry. You get out your measuring apparatus
>> and say ``how can you be hungry? you just ate a huge dinner two hours
>> ago!''. I say ``no, your equipment is malfunctioning.'' You go off an
>> test your equipment and report that it is working fine. I say ``well,
>> it can't be: you see there is this evil plot to starve me to death --
>> all equipment will fail to measure whether or not I am hungry because
>> that is the way that this plot works.'' ``But you *just* ate dinner!''
>> ``Pure illusion and deception implanted in your mind. You can't
>> underestimate the damager-god (oops, wrong article!) after all''.

>And, given the evidence against you, I'd be right in concluding that you were
>deluded, that perhaps there was other chemical imbalance in your body that
>made it appear to you that you were hungry, or that you WERE simply being
>your typical infuriating self. :-)

But that's just the point.  You've given up on being able to predict Laura's
hunger, and have settled for merely predicting that she ought to be hungry.
You've failed to capture Hunger in your theory, and thus you can't verify
that Laura is indeed hungry.  This problem is perhaps surmountable, but the
ways in which it might be overcome are certainly unknown at this time.

>> And so it goes. At some point you will be forced to choose to believe me or
>> to believe your equipment.  If all the objective evidence that you can
>> garner points to the fact that I am not hungry then  it will be most
>> reasonable for you to assume that I am lying.  But in making that
>> assumption you are implicitly professing a belief in objective reality.
>> But how can you defend that belief without saying either that it is
>> self-evident or that it is possible to construct a consistent set
>> of beliefs while using this belief which is also consistent with
>> the evidence of your senses?

>Precisely because it is verifiable, the testing has been rigorous, and it
>falls in line with other evidence and data we have about the universe.

But as it stands, it is not verifiable, because there is (possibly) a lie
standing between you and Laura's subjective mental states.  You aren't
measuring hunger, after all; you are measuring physiological reactions to
food, or even (if you a a little more sophisticated) mental responses to
food.  But it doesn't follow that responses to food (or lack thereof) are
indeed hunger; likewise, it is not impossible for humans to feel hunger in
the absence of "appropriate" stimuli.  So I don't accept the legitimacy of
this technique; there are obvious lapses in it which are papered over with
dubious assumptions-- especially when you are ready to doubt the only
observer rather than change the model.

>> That is immaterial to the discussion at hand -- if there are any subjective
>> beliefs that stand up to that scrutiny then those are the ones that I want
>> to deal with.

>What is it mean for them to "stand up to the scrutiny"?  It simply means to
>be verified.  Only those which are verified are true.  The rest may or may
>not be true, but given the lack of evidence for them they can be dismissed.
>By saying "those are the ones that I want to deal with", you have made my
>point for me:  only that which does stand up can be called knowledge or
>fact.  On the contrary, it is FUNDAMENTAL to the discussion at hand.

THe truth of a proposition is (for all but self-referential propositions)
completely independent of whether or not anyone thinks that it is true.  If
you do not accept this principle, then one must conclude that the earth did
not begin to revolve around the sun until people believed that it did.


C Wingate


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