levels of determinism part I

for some reason I've become quite interested in determinism! and not in the religious sense, but more in the there-is-no-free-will-thanks-to-the-degree-of-freedom kind of way. well, actually, i don't mean to say that, that there is no free will, that would be to hardcore, and I'm not there yet to prove it; however, what I've been reading is a very interesting explanation of the levels of determinism that we could face. some arguments against determinism are something like the following formalism by Tymothy O'Connor in his article On the Transfer of Necessity :
(TNP) Nst p, Nst (p → q) ├ Nst q
pretty much what the statements says is that if it is necessary the case that p then q then it has to be q. the problem is when we come to the argument of what if -q? then the original statement p then q looses a little bit of credibility, because there is a case (the second case in the truth table) where an if-then relationship is false; so if it was the case that -q, even though p, then it would be necessarily the case that p then q. So, if in logic terms there is room for possibility as opposed as necessity, then a deterministic model wouldn't make full logical sense.

conceivability and possibility

it has come to my attention repeatedly the fact that many of the philosophical arguments within the philosophy of mind are based on conceivability. also many of the objections to some of the arguments are based on conceivability. Even though many would agree that as long as it is conceivable, it might be possible... right? how could it be denied that there is some sort of existence of possibilities that we just dont have access to. furthermore, the problem with possibility as opposed as conceivability is that we would have to commit to a kripkean modality , like it is not very likely to happen under a certain set of conditions but there might be a possible state of affairs under which it is possible. For example there is the zombie argument against functionalism. the problem with zombies is that they might act the same way that an active agent would, but, presumably, they wouldn't have any qualitative experience. the zombie would know what it is like to eat tofurkey, but would, nevertheless, would be able to eat it, and possibly make comments about. but the zombie would be either lying or non-consciously just trying to mimic a behavior.
this whole argument is well explored by a lot of philosophers, but it is still a conceivability argument, we cant probe it, however we can imagine a POSSIBLE world where there are zombies who are qualia absent. so it is hard to tell whether conceivability entails possibility, or possibility has different limits than conceivability.

Philosophy of Religioin

Before submitting this entry, I had begun by writing a couple of paragraphs on the problem of evil and the so-called Euthyphro's dilemma (based on a dialogue by Plato), but then regarded them as both archaic and somewhat obsolete compared to evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkin's arguments.

There exists in my opinion the most compelling and eloquent arguments yet: those of Richard Dawkins. He brings to surface qualities which a God, if one exists, might value. These include an analysis and eventual rejection of Pascal's wager, which states that one won't lose anything by either believing or not believing. If one believes, says Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), in God and it turns out that there is a God then one can only gain something, namely entrance into heaven. If there isn't a God then there is nothing to lose. If, however, one doesn't believe and it turns out that there is a God then one can only suffer eternal damnation. If there is no God and one doesn't believe then, again, there is no problem. This is of no use, says Dawkins, because "why, in any case, do we so readily accept the idea that the one thing you must do if you want to please God is believe in him?" (The God Delusion, 2006, p. 104). Dawkins goes on to talk about Bertrand Russell and how he would reply upon encountering a God after death. Russell said that he would point out the absence of evidence in God's favor. Commenting on Russell's case, Dawkins says, "Mightn't God respect Russell for his courageous scepticism (let alone for the courageous pacifism that landed him in prison in the First World War) far more than he would respect Pascal for his cowardly bet-heding?" (p. 104).

Dawkin's arguments, among many other elaborate and well-thought-out ones in his book, also include the notion of a burden of proof. Who does it rest with? Unequivocally, with the believer. We don't feel an obligation, argues Dawkins, to disprove any of the millions of "far-fetched" deities, such as Zeus, a Flying Spaghetti Monster, Apollo, a celestial teapot, Amon, Ra, Mithras, Baal, Thor, Wotan, the Golden Calf. "I just go one god further" (p. 53).

-Pablo

relational dialectics in the process of socialization

Tomorrow, Thursday November 1st at 4pm at Cotton Memorial room 207, the Philosophy Club will be having the lecture "relational dialectics in the process of socialization" by Patricia Smith. Smith has a BA in Communications from the University of Texas at El Paso and is currently working on her MA. Basically the topic refers to the informality of language and the way that many principles are not respected thanks to the process of socialization (adaptation). One of the principles that most of us would like to respect is the principle of non-contradiction. Smith will show us the way that relational dialectics break all this principles that would maybe simplify the process of socialization by making a statement clear and persistent throughout the discourse.

on the relativity of human rights

this Wednesday, October 24th, AI @ El Paso and the Philosophy Club @ UTEP are presenting a panel on the relativity of human rights. the panel will consists of 3 outstanding speakers: Dr Simon, chair of the philosophy dpt at UTEP, Dr Ferret faculty in the philosophy dpt at UTEP and Dr Wren Faculty from the humanities dpt also at UTEP. each of the speakers will talk form 15 to 20 minutes on a topic of their choice around the relativity of human rights. you are welcomed to come and join us, its gonna be at the University Suite, East Union 3rd floor, at 7 pm here at UTEP... so, what do you think about this topic? how about discussing ethical systems for a change... not to say that I'm changing my min...lol!! just that ethical systems crash against each other creating a problem with the respect towards equality. one system may consider one thing as ethical and another system may consider that ethical thing as unethical. these disagreements are supposed to be dismissed thanks to international law and the declaration of human rights, however, how is it that human rights become a necessary condition of the natural process? do they? i would say that human rights bend, or become contingent within this possible world. ok maybe that does not make sense at all, but can you understand what i mean? human rights are supossed to be a measure to ALL, but if not ALL get them then:
For all x, there is some y such that Dxy...where... x=human y=human rights D=deserve
So, in the logical sense if every human deserves these rights, where is it that the process is broken?
ok, so im gonna be needing some experts on ethics, lets talk ethics and moral philosophy for a while, just for fun... how about that?

yes... functionalism again...

ok...so... going back to the point of functionalism... we are saying that the mind is a function of the body (brain) so we wouldnt have to get into dualism activity or any cartesian notion of the mind body problem where the body is aware and the mind understands. however, if we are talking about qualia and the understanding of this qualitive experiences, then we start talking about semantics. so if we take the example of Mary and the room, which is that Mary has been living in a black and white room without any kind of qualitive experience..only learning ...but not direct empirical experience. when Mary leaves the room she starts experiencing all this stuff... so the point is that before leaving the room... was she learning? do we learn without experiencing?
i was thinking this: before she left the room she had a syntactical grasp of things. after she left the room she had a semantical grasp. now the crucial point is the fact that she left the room and started 'experiencing' or experimenting...and finally realizing what ever it was that she had been learning all along.
since i started reading philosophy i've been quite skeptic towards distinctions. analytic and sythetic, apriori and aposteriori, syntax and semantics, and so on... and maybe this sounds funny...but there has to be a detonator that bursts this distinction... so where is the fine line that divides one side from the other... in the case of Mary before and after the room i would say that there is something such that that something makes Mary conscious or aware of something, by herself. she steped from the third person perspective to the first person perspective...she was finally doing it by herself. i think this is a huge criticism against functionalism, because is bringing back the relevance of metaphysics by taking under account the existence (wihtout any particular ontological view) of the mind as a weird thing to talk about, not as a fuction of the body.

art or science? or both...or not...

does art contain science? does sicence contain art? are those two completely diferent disciplines? i've been thinking about this, and i think that science could be concidered as art, since we start with curiosity, some level of creativity and inspiration, then we formulate a hypothesis then we follow the method... the scientific one...right? but then would't it make sicence too subjetive? i mean..to consider it as art...because we may turn science into art, but can we turn art into sicence without leading it to fraud?
i think there would have to be a sharp distinction between objectivity and subjectivity in order narrow the 'fraud' possibilities. but even if we come up with an 'objectivized' scientific inquiry, we would have the hypothesis formulation as the first step of the scientific method, which is mere metaphysical inquiry. this goes beyond objectivity. so if science is subjective, because it comes from the search of subjective entities, then knowledge itself even if committed to a system of proof, would be subjective. So art would come first than science, science would come to regulate art, and then we would be back to art again. right? but isn't it a logical process? isn't logic a scientific inquiry?

is functionalism really THAT problematic?

according to one of the criticisms against functionalism, if we are reducing thought (concious experience) to being a function of the body then it has to be taken under consideration the fact that a function doesnt really have to UNDERSTAND whatever the funtion is. the entity 'looses' its ability to identify and process meaning. This is the Syntactical approach against functionalism. the fact that the entity has no intentionality, or that it doesn't matter if it does, as long as it remains doing its function, is problematic for any kind of conciousness talk. So, should it matter? having intentionality gives us our 'humanity', our choices, our desires, our beliefs. however, arent this just reactions to qualitative experiences?

naturalism and conceptualization

the conceptualization of metaphysical claims helps us to understand the natural world, but how far can we go on this conceptualization without loosing track of the objectivity that naturalism has to offer? however metaphysics is the one of the best access that we have in order to do epistemology, but if we are taking under consideration that concepts help us to understand the bigger structure of the natural process then we are following the scientific mehtod with natural means... what do you think?

intro

so we have now a good spot to give away some thoughts on philosophy or current issues, hopefully we'll make a good use of this space to get to good discussions and ultimately learning stuff..right?