Space Cadet Will Hutton is sadly misinformed.

[caspian]

Biff, I understand that fallacy, which is why I asked Ludwig what his reasons were for supposing that collapse is certain now (or very soon), given that people in times gone by also thought they had good reasons to expect a collapse. I'm not a collapsist (is that a word?), so I don't agree it's necessarily imminent, although I understand the reasons why one might think it is. As Chris, I think, asked in another thread, it all depends on what you mean by "collapse". Perhaps the argument is moot if you're using different definitions. I tend to think a slow decline is more likely, but you might think that also constitutes a collapse. Maybe it is - after all, the Roman Empire might be said to have "collapsed", but arguably it took hundreds of years to do so.

[EDIT]: 10 pages, and still going! We seem to have drifted somewhat.

[caspian]

Andy - OK, I see where you're at, although it doesn't get us very far. My previous statement was in error (that maths doesn't rest on physical laws). I should've said that beyond the axioms pure mathematics can be deduced through logic. But as you've said, ultimately it has to be tested in the real world.

[UndercoverElephant]

So your argument for pure mathematics being based on reason and not being based on empiricism is that its founding assumptions can only be based on empiricism and not reason?

I'm afraid you've lost me there. My original point wasn't about the axioms at all, it was that pure mathematics doesn't rest on physical laws.

Okay... breaking it down as a logical argument.

1. All mathematics relies on foundation axioms.
2. All mathematical axioms are based on empiricism (observation)
3. Therefore mathematics is based on empiricism (is not purely reasoned)

I don't think (2) is true. Mathematical axioms are abstract - they aren't based on observation.

[Ludwig]

I believe everyone understands the experience of intuition. However anyone with any intelligence whatsoever must recognise that the truth is often counter-intuitive and that that voice is unreliable. Observation is good, it is simply collecting data. Even psychologists have abandoned introspection.

More fool them. Coupled with observation and neuroscience, it's an essential component of understanding the mind, in my opinion. How can you research a phenomenon - consciousness - purely by its apparent causes, and not by the nature of the thing itself?

[AndySir]

UE - any examples to back that claim up? Comutativity and equality have already been discounted, Euclidian geometry is fairly obviously based on observation. Calculus was developed by Newton to describe the relationship between speed and acceleration. Even matrix algebra, which does not follow the principles of commutativity, was grounded in quantum mechanics by Heisenberg. What abstracts are there?

Ludvig - you can't use introspection to examine consciousness for much the same reason as you can't map England from Trafalgar Square.

[JavaScriptDonkey]

Common sense and intuition can be honed - you test what actually happens against what your gut feeling was, and if there's a discrepancy, you adjust your mental model of the world.

Are you suggesting that common sense and intuition are in fact learned? That they are based on knowledge, experience and extracted wisdom rather than being some self contained unit of understanding?

Kind of makes the whole idea of common sense a mite confused with that of the more testable concept of knowledge.

It isn't common sense that stops me cutting my fingers when peeling potatoes but rather the knowledge that it hurts. Can you perhaps provide an example of this common sense at work?

[UndercoverElephant]

UE - any examples to back that claim up? Comutativity and equality have already been discounted, Euclidian geometry is fairly obviously based on observation. Calculus was developed by Newton to describe the relationship between speed and acceleration. Even matrix algebra, which does not follow the principles of commutativity, was grounded in quantum mechanics by Heisenberg. What abstracts are there?

Surely mathematics start from {}, not empirical observation?

I'm a mathematical platonist - I see numbers as self-existing entities which would exist even if there wasn't any Universe. It follows that they can't be dependent on observation.

[Mean Mr Mustard]

Ten pages worth. The longest ever thread wot I started, still going strong.

(Takes a bow)

And all I said was that some media whoring pseudo intellectual lefty might be rather wrong regarding the true prospects for asteroid mining.

[Prokopton]

What abstracts are there?

Bizarre question... there is pure mathematics and number theory, then there is applied. The very concept of something to apply means that it need not be applied, and although mathematics may take inspiration from real-world problems sometimes (not always) its arabesques can end up very far from applicability. Whereas Fermat's last theorem on your everyday needs list?

As for psychologists 'abandoning intuition', I certainly don't think so! Although they may want to test it.

Yes intuition can certainly be learned. I hate to bring up my martial arts stuff again, but a standard exercise is to walk slowly towards two people, one giving out friendly thoughts and the other vicious ones -- your task is to walk on the friendly side. Do that every day for two weeks and you will start to get better at it, but no conscious thought is involved. Very useful skill.

Teaching common sense -- sure. REBT or other cognitive therapies are often exactly about that.

On the other hand:

It's a pattern, but not a course of events that can be predicted by scientific analysis.

No, people are starting to be able to predict societal collapse. Greer has a nice summary of a theory here. Don't forget tainter, but even better stuff now being done by people like this IMO.

Show me a scientist with no intuition and I'll show you one lame scientist. But it all fits together.

[Ludwig]

Ludvig - you can't use introspection to examine consciousness for much the same reason as you can't map England from Trafalgar Square.

I am struggling to avoid getting embroiled in a debate about consciousness for 3-dozenth time on the 'Net.

I know what I think about consciousness, and I like to discuss it with people with similar views. But I don't have any interest in discussing it with behaviourists.

[Prokopton]

But I don't have any interest in discussing it with behaviourists.

Very wise!

BTW on this:

If huge corporations peddled alternative medicine, they would obtain the evidence to support it, you can count on it.

I'm afraid I'd have to agree, and from insider stuff too. Companies can get the 'proofs' they want in many cases.

[Mean Mr Mustard]

But I don't have any interest in discussing it with behaviourists.

Very wise!

BTW on this:

If huge corporations peddled alternative medicine, they would obtain the evidence to support it, you can count on it.

I'm afraid I'd have to agree, and from insider stuff too. Companies can get the 'proofs' they want in many cases.

Are any large corporations peddling Asteroid Mining?

[caspian]

a standard exercise is to walk slowly towards two people, one giving out friendly thoughts and the other vicious ones -- your task is to walk on the friendly side. Do that every day for two weeks and you will start to get better at it, but no conscious thought is involved.

Maybe not conscious thought, but you'll be reading their body language (or was that what you meant?). If you're claiming some sort of extrasensory ability then can you correctly interpret their thoughts if they're each behind an opaque screen? If so, then Randi's $1m awaits you.

[Ludwig]

Common sense and intuition can be honed - you test what actually happens against what your gut feeling was, and if there's a discrepancy, you adjust your mental model of the world.

Are you suggesting that common sense and intuition are in fact learned? That they are based on knowledge, experience and extracted wisdom rather than being some self contained unit of understanding?

Kind of makes the whole idea of common sense a mite confused with that of the more testable concept of knowledge.

To be honest, this discussion is rather boring me, as I have very little interest in theories of knowledge. Most of them are barking up totally the wrong tree. For you can't address the issue of knowledge without addressing the issue of consciousness, and theorisers about knowledge usually shy away from that, regard consciousness as simply the arbitrary box that knowledge gets dumped in, rather something of fundamental importance to the nature of knowledge itself.

I can't say exactly where intuition comes from - perhaps mostly from past experience, but I think there is also another, more "metaphysical" aspect to it too. The point is that it needs a pliable medium, consciousness, to operate in. It operates largely via the associative faculty and has to do with the perception of ideas and "essences".

For example, I have an idea of what French people are like, that is independent of any particular French person, and is also more than a check-list of characteristics. It's built up from meeting French people, studying French at university, living in France... just a process of gradual and largely subconscious absorption of the the way the French behave. It's a feeling, it has an essence, an unmistakable flavour to it, and you can't reduce it to a list of characteristics without missing its fundamental characteristic, its "quale".

The same thing applies to a sense of history or of human nature in general. They are built up from lots of little inputs, but have a holistic quality: from past experience you can say, "I expect this to happen", without often being able to pinpoint exactly which past experience you're drawing on.

It isn't common sense that stops me cutting my fingers when peeling potatoes but rather the knowledge that it hurts. Can you perhaps provide an example of this common sense at work?

In 1990, my German landlord commented, "When Yugoslavia falls apart, that's really going to be a bloodbath." He wasn't psychic or anything, but he was right.

I can imagine lots of empirical rationalists arguing smugly and stupidly, "Oh well now, there's no reason to suppose that Yugoslavia will be a bloodbath, after all they remember WW2 and why would they want to destroy their own economies." My landlord, in other words, had an understanding of human nature and power politics that informed his prediction, though I doubt if he could have pinpointed this or that piece of empirical evidence as its source.

[Ludwig]

a standard exercise is to walk slowly towards two people, one giving out friendly thoughts and the other vicious ones -- your task is to walk on the friendly side. Do that every day for two weeks and you will start to get better at it, but no conscious thought is involved.

Maybe not conscious thought, but you'll be reading their body language (or was that what you meant?). If you're claiming some sort of extrasensory ability then can you correctly interpret their thoughts if they're each behind an opaque screen? If so, then Randi's $1m awaits you.

Randi is a con artist. His rules state that if any test he sets up for psychic or paranormal phenomena yields positive resutls - and there is a long list of ones that have done - he can argue that his own experiment was flawed, and so deny the participant the $1m.

He has done this on numerous occasions - for example, one participant correctly guesed the contents of a sealed box, and Randi argued that, in spite of all the checks that he had put in place to prevent cheating, the participant must nevertheless have cheated.

Before the experiment, the partipant signs an agreement with Randi that Randi's decision, whatever rationale he gives, is final and uncontestable.

The hilarious thing is that so many people think this is science. Not for its methods, which are entirely unscientific. But merely for what it sets out to prove.