Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site umcp-cs.UUCP
Path: utzoo!decvax!tektronix!zehntel!dual!vecpyr!lll-lcc!lll-crg!seismo!umcp-cs!mangoe
From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Conditioning for Reason
Message-ID: <2213@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 14-Nov-85 02:04:33 EST
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.2213
Posted: Thu Nov 14 02:04:33 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 17-Nov-85 17:25:42 EST
References: <2040@pyuxd.UUCP> <2153@umcp-cs.UUCP> <2120@pyuxd.UUCP>
Distribution: na
Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD
Lines: 45

Rich Rosen has insisted that the mind is deterministic and that all behavior
is therefore determined by conditioning.  So let's consider what happens to
reason under that assumption.

Why should reason produce truth?  Because there is an evolutionary advantage
to it being true.  But what about all the errors?

Rich argues that argument and debate force out presumtions and other errors.
This they certainly do-- to a certain extent.  It's clear, for instance,
that in some people the reasoning process is interfered with to produce
erroneous answers.  Sometimes these are indeed trapped by the argumentation
process.  Others, however, are protected.  Assuming for the moment that
there is some flaw in someone's reasoning which they do not see, there must
be another flaw protecting it from counterarguments.  Build up enough of
these and you have a systematic error that is self-protecting.  THere is
reason to suspect that these do in fact exist.  So why aren't they
eliminated?  I can only see three responses, and each of them means trouble
for the truth of reasoning.

Response 1: These systematic errors are in fact evolutionarily advantageous.
This, it seems to me, knocks the wind out of the evolutionary argument for
the truth of reason by showing a falsehood which is advantageous.

Response 2: Systematic errors arise because the evolution towards reason is
not complete.  This paints a rather eschatological view of reason, and it
presupposes a certain destiny which man must strive for.  This may well be
true, but it certainly is not a reasoned argument.

Response 3: Abandon the evolutionary hypothesis, and claim a different basis
for truth.

Note that there are variations on these; for #1, for instance, one might
argue that retention of other desirable qualities guarantees the retention
of systematic errors.

In any case, it appears that we are stuck with systematic errors, and
therefore the reasoning of an individual cannot be trusted.  So what new
standard is there?  Various forms of group concensus generally seem to have
a problem in that they may simply be ratifying a common error.  I will
confess at this point that I don't have an answer.  My hunch is that error
is unavoidable.

Any comments?  Responses I have left out?

Charley Wingate