MC Philosophy

Kuhn: Justification of Scientific Theory

This is the second entry on Thomas Kuhn, the first is Thomas Kuhn: Objectivity, Value Judgment and Theory Choice.

In the previous entry, we discussed the notion of scientific revolutions and how Kuhn proposed they came about.  Science didn't progress smoothly with new facts adding onto or improving older ones, but rather science moved in revolutions where paradigm shifts created a new way to look at science and the world.  These shifts were not the act of Truth-progression, but scientists making personal judgments and justifications as to which theory to support.  Here we will discuss in greater detail this last part, the justifications of the scientist deciding between competing theories. 

- Now, as stated in the last entry, Kuhn is trying to dismantle the belief that his proposal for scientific revolutions includes a type of "mob psychology" on the part of scientists.  That is, whatever seems hip at the time for a scientist to believe is what he/she will believe and study/teach.  If that was the case, they would be no better than sociologists. 

Unlike a set of commandments that tell you exactly what to do, what decisions are right or wrong, Kuhn stated that there was no single rule set for determining support for competing theories. 

"In the absence of criteria able to dictate the choice of the individual, I argued, we do well to trust the collective judgment of scientists trained in this way.  'What better criterion could there be ' I asked rhetorically, 'than the decision of the scientific group?'"

This may seem like a nice compliment to scientists - that they are most qualified to determine which theories to be supported.  But quickly the mob turned against him, with scimitars, for this undermined what many scientists believed about their practice.  If the worth of competing theories is only based on the group decision of qualified scientists, is it not more True than before?  Many scientists surely thought they were discovering new Truths about the world, and that they chose Einsteinian physics over Newtonian physics because Einstein was Right and Newton was Wrong. 

- This opens up a whole slew of questions about how these decisions are made, and thus about how science progresses:  Who is actually a scientist?  Why does science work so well if its just people deciding whats best?  How does a scientist decide which theory is good and which isn't?

-It is the third query that we will address now.  Kuhn provides 5 principle characteristics of a good scientific theory, not exhaustive characteristics, but the main ones. 

1. Accuracy - "within its domain, that is, consequences deducible from a theory should be in demonstrated agreement." 
2. Consistency - "not only internally or with itself, but also with other currently accepted theories applicable to related aspects of nature."
3. Broad Scope - "a theories consequences should extend far beyond the particular observations, laws or subtheories it was initially designed to explain."
4. Simplicity - "bringing order to phenomena that in its absence would be individually isolated, and, as a set, confused."
5. Fruitfulness - "discloses(s) new phenomena or previously unnoted relationships among those already known."

Scientists would've been just fine with criterion 1 as the sole one.  Many want to get the right answer, turn around and smile a delightful smile.  Copernicus was just more accurate than Ptolemy, they will say.  HE WAS RIGHT!!, they will scream.  The earth does move around the sun, they will haughtily profess. 

- Now, the key to all of this is Justification.  How do you justify who you believe, at the time, between Copernicus and Ptolemy.  Because we must note that had it not been for Copernican supporters at his time, he might have faded into oblivion, and who knows, maybe we'd still be the masters of the Universe!! 

"Copernicus's system, for example, was not more accurate than Ptolemy's until drastically revised by Kepler more than sixty years after Copernicus's death...The oxygen theory, for example was universally acknowledged to account for observed weight relations in chemical reactions, something the phlogiston theory had previously scarcely attempted to do.  But the phlogiston theory, unlike its rival, could account for the metals' being much more alike than the ores from which they were formed.  One theory thus matched experience better in one area, the other in another.  To choose between them on the basis of accuracy, a scientist would need to decide the area in which accuracy was more significant."

But the Phlogiston Theory was wrong!! And Oxygen Theory Right!!!

- Let's not forget that Kuhn is here describing how scientists, at the time, come to support a certain theory over another.  And at the time it is not so obvious.  They have to individually make a choice - am I a Copernican or a Ptolemian? am I a Phlogistonian or an Oxygenationian?  That choice will set the stage for further supporters to work within the, say Copernican, framework and discover new insights into a heliocentric universe.  And had they decided on Ptolemy, they would be searching for and assigning evidence to the geocentric theory. 

-Kuhn proposes that simplicity not accuracy was the main determining characteristic that made Copernican theory better than Ptolemian.  "But that sense of simplicity was not the only one available, nor even the one most natural to professional astronomers, men whose task was the actual computation of planetary position." 

Much like how the Bachelor has to decide which characteristic is most important to him - T and A, great hair, bubbly personality, etc., because it is not logically obvious which one is the correct choice.  And what if I think Julie's T and A is the best and you think Laura's is?

"When scientists must choose between competing theories, two men fully committed to the same list of criteria for choice may nevertheless reach different conclusions.  Perhaps they interpret simplicity differently or have different convictions about the range of fields within which the consistency criterion must be met."

- The fundamental point is that there are different characteristics of a good theory and the justification for choosing one theory over another is not always housed in logical accuracy. 

Next Up:  Kuhn: Values and Algorithms

Thomas Kuhn: Objectivity, Value Judgment and Theory Choice

Thomas Kuhn  (1922 - 1996)

- Scientist and Philosopher hugely influential in the History and Philosophy of Science

- Known for concept of Scientific Revolutions

Positions Defended - Science based in revolutions of thought, Incommensurability, Subjective nature of individuals in science

Work Discussed - Objectivity, Value Judgment, and Theory Choice

- Talking about this essay instead of Kuhn's famous book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (SOSR), might seem questionable since Objectivity, Value Judgment, and Theory Choice (OVJTC) is a corollary work, addressing interpretive misunderstandings of his major work. 

-So why are we discussing OVJTC and not SOSR? 

Why do you climb K2 when its only the second highest mountain in the world?  Because it's there, it's badass, and it still has a lot to offer.  (And maybe because that was the only mountain available to you at the moment and you just felt that climbing that one and not the other one).

- We can look at OVJTC as a work that expounds upon mistakes that Kuhn believes others made in interpreting SOSR.  Most significantly, the idea that with his notion of scientific revolutions came the idea that science was totally debased and scientists merely practicing "mob psychology".  First, though, we must have a quick run through of SOSR.

Kuhn's Revolutionary Ideas

- In SOSR, Kuhn proposed a huge idea about the nature of science - that it wasn't simply a logical progression of scientific facts.  Instead, he proposed that science underwent Paradigm Shifts.  These paradigm shifts were when ordinary science gave way to a revolutionary idea, that changed the way scientists thought about the world. 

Paradigm Shifter

Paradigm Shifter

Paradigm Shifter  (ps - thats a sexy pic of Isaac Newton)

- Now this idea of paradigm shift isn't quite as jolting as the reasons Kuhn gave for these paradigm shifts occurring.  He claimed they didn't occur purely based on scientific fact.  They didn't happen because Einstein was right and Newton was wrong or because Copernicus was right and Ptolemy was wrong.  These shifts, or revolutions, happened because specific scientists of the given era made personal choices that supported the revolutionary idea over the earlier paradigm. 

Let's find the most trite example we can......ah, Professional Football

For years, teams were lining up and running short and throwing deep.  That was how the game was played, in essence you ran short so you could upen up the longer throws.  Like scientists in the Newton era, you solved problems according to Newtonian calculus, within the established paradigm.  Coaches would come up with new plays to fit this basic scheme. 

Then came this guy called Bill Walsh, who thought outside the traditional paradigm and tried to think of other ways to solve the problem.  He came up with what's called the West Coast Offense.  This employed short, precise passes to the sidelines that spread the field and allowed passing and running lanes deep and up the middle. 

(This image should clear it all up).  His idea was that the short passes would force a defense to play over greater parts of the field.  Passes could happen outside the fat linemen, so they wouldn't get stifled like runs, and this would bring defenders closer to the line of scrimmage, making bigger plays available.  Kind of like how Einstein determined that curved space-time would make gravity no longer a mysterious force, creating a new understanding of how to describe the universe. 

And just like with Einstein's theories, the West Coast Offense worked GREAT.  Soon, in order to compete, you had to be playing some form of that offense, cause it was just the way to win - the way to get things done. 

- Now you couldn't say that the West Coast Offense was logically better than previous ones.  They all had their advantages and they all worked at different times.  Similarly, Einstein's theories shouldn't be considered logically better than Newton's, they just work better nowadays, and people decided to use that paradigm. 

This isn't as benign as it might seem.  If the progression of science is only based on the personal views of scientists and not on the Truth of the new idea over the earlier one, then many believe science itself is degraded.  It's no longer Truth-exposing, but language-evolving. (Pictured is the metaphorical kick in the nuts that some scientists must have felt). 

- It goes even deeper, however. Somebody running a West Coast Offense could still run an old-school play.  They still had all the parts and the know-how.  The only difference was that  in the old school systems the play would be called "dive right", the West Coast based systems would call it "X left, Magnum, Z motion, 24 Beamer".  These two languages for different systems were incommensurable.

- Kuhn believed that the proponents of the newer ideas were in effect incommensurable with the old schoolers. That is, they could not wholly compare systems with each other because the methodology they were using, the perceptions and observations they were looking for, and the language they were speaking, were so very different.

So we no longer have a linear form of science, progressing in a straight line of information improval, but jumps to different steps, where the thought on the new step isn't better or necessarily truer, just newer and more akin to our purposes today.

OVJTC

- As we shall see, this doesn't wholly degrade science, and it doesn't fall into complete relativism.  What OVJTC explains is that subjectivity always comes into play when deciding which theory to go by.  Therefore, there is no objective choice such that Einstein should be believed and Newton should be discarded.  That is based on individual scientists who make value judgments and theory choices that affect the direction of science as a whole.

Next Up: Kuhn and Justification of Scientific Theory

 

Edward Wilson and Features of Sociobiology

This is the fourth and final entry on Edward Wilson's "On Human Nature".  The first is Edward Wilson: On Human Nature, the second is Edward Wilson and Sociobiology, and the third is Edward Wilson: Sociobiology and Humans.

- After discussing the biological aspects of materialism and sociobiology, then relating it to how this theory could affect humans, it is now time to discuss some large topics that need clarifying.  These will include the difference between biological evolution and cultural evolution, and how sociobiology affects very important human institutions. 

Cultural Vs. Biological Evolution

- We will start with a necessary clarification, that between biological and cultural evolution.

Our devoted readers will remember a reference made earlier  to the possibility that Marilyn Monroe and her busty blond look could have been a determining factor in biological evolution.  That because of the huge cultural influence she had, more blond women with big boobs (or manufactured thusly) would get the better mates and change the gene pool to their favor. 

  Thus we would see this type of woman as having a greater likelihood of passing her genes along, and maybe in the future we would have more and more Pams.  This is not the case that sociobiology makes exactly (though this is possible).  The blond haired, big boobed traits and especially the plastic surgery to attain them are examples of cultural evolution.  In this case, the evolution of what is "sexy" or "looked for" in a woman, physically.  In fact, the vast majority of human biological evolution occurred in times never recorded and the explosion of cultural evolution has since been far outpacing any biological evolution. 

"We can be fairly certain that most of the genetic evolution of human social behavior occurred over the five million years prior to civilization...On the other hand, by far the greater part of cultural evolution has occurred since the origin of agriculture and cities approximately 10,000 years ago.  Although genetic evolution of some kind continued during this latter, historical sprint, it cannot have fashioned more than a tiny fraction of the traits of human nature...It follows that human sociobiology can be most directly tested in studies of hunter-gathering societies and the most persistent preliterate herding and agricultural societies."

-So there is a reason that culture has not deviated the human nature to an amazing degree, because most of it evolved far ago when culture was not as strong a force.  And we are still able to see amazing similarities (as stated specifically in the last entry) in all human civilizations, without certain cultures differing greatly genetically. 

-This does not mean that no biological evolution is occurring at all, just that the major features will most likely remain the same.  Just recently, scientists from the University of Chicago found many forms of evolution in humans that affect things like the ability to digest milk in Europeans, or specific sugars in East Asians.  These minor changes to help survival in specific places and due to specific cultural practices are exciting.  More on this will surely be coming as the genetic field prospers. 

So, for now, we don't have to worry about this being our future.  Actually, if the power of advertising persists, we might. 

Religion

-Many of the major institutions that people would consider "cultural" or completely disconnected from biology, actually can be easily explained by sociobiology, "religions are like other human institutions in that they evolve in directions that enhance the welfare of the practitioners...the benefit can arise as the sum of the generally increased fitness of all the members." 

Once you understand the tenets of sociobiology, it is easy to see how adhering to a religion would help pass along genetic traits.  Becoming a member of such a strong and enormous group is a dream for genes. 

- This institution of religion serves to promote certain biological traits, "xenophobia, the dichotomization of objects into the sacred and profane, hierarchical dominance, intense attention toward leaders, charisma, trophyism, and trance induction are among the elements of religious behavior most likely to be shaped by developmental programs and learning rules."  Since forms of religion have been around since before "time", and have only prospered since, it makes sense that these genetic predispositions would be very powerful. 

- Even Martyrdom (not pictured to avoid promotion of activity) makes sense evolutionarily.  Once you understand that evolution is not about spreading individual genes at all costs, but also involves spreading your close familial genes or group genes, the existence of martyrdom is obviously a positive move for your genes.  Because people revere the martyr and it helps promote their ideals and spread their religion; the martyr is a powerful force evolutionarily.  "The loss of genes suffered through the deaths of disciplined individuals can be more than balanced by a gain of genes attained through expansion of the benefited group."

Thus, I give you Sociobiology and Humans through Edward O. Wilson's "On Human Nature".  And one last gratuitous shot of Marilyn Monroe as a toast to the great effects of Sociobiology. 

Edward Wilson: Sociobiology and Humans

This is the third entry on Edward Wilson's "On Human Nature", the first is Edward Wilson: On Human Nature , the second is Edward Wilson and Sociobiology

-Now the brush up on the material mind and the tenets of sociobiology are behind us, we can move into the effect that Wilson claims sociobiology has on humans.  A central claim that is reinforced by many examples in the human and their society is that "beliefs are really enabling mechanisms for survival" and that "human institutions, evolve so as to enhance the persistence and influence of their practitioners." 

This may seem an unusual claim since humans have created some really wierd institutions.  It may seem impossible that the Trekkie world could in any way be a "mechanism for survival" or in any manner "enhance the persistence and influence of their practitioners."  But this claim should not be taken in an absolute literal way; it is not the Trekkie-ness that promotes its participants, but it is the institution in general - the gathering of people with like minds (obsessive for a science fiction escapism, maybe), who create an institution that makes their type solidified through the security of the group.  And people of that type will then be more likely to find a mate, or an intimate group.

Similarities in Human Cultures

- Biology has created a nature in humans that promotes the creation of certain institutions in all human cultures, "There are social traits occurring through all cultures which upon close examination are as diagnostic of mankind as are distinguishing characteristics of other animal species."

Americans, Indonesians, Ancient Romans, and even the rare Bulging Buttocks Bushmen all share similar institutions and cultural traits that the anthropologist George Murdock claims have been recorded in every culture known to history.  Some of them include: "Age-grading, athletic sports, bodily adornment, calendar, cleanliness training, community organization, cooking, cooperative labor, courtship, cosmology, dancing, divination, dream interpretation, faith healing, family feasting, fire making, food taboos, gift giving, government, hair styles, incest taboos, inheritance rules, kin groups, language, law, luck superstitions" and many more. 

-These are societal similarities that are alike in all known civilizations because they come from institutions created by ancient man in order to better ensure his/her survival and that of their clan.  The fact that they still persist is due to cultural influence.  Even in societies where these structures are not needed for survival, they are continually propagated because that is what society demands of its participants.  The genetic traits that cause humans to fulfill these cultural institutions are thus reproduced.

Prepared Learning

"The learning potential of each species appears to be fully programmed by the structure of its brain, the sequence of release of its hormones, and ultimately, its genes.  Each animal species, is 'prepared'  to learn certain stimuli, barred from learning others, and neutral with respect to still others...Each year indigo buntings migrate...Like many other native birds they travel at night.  After leaving the nest, young buntings are prepared to learn the north star and circumpolar constellations, which they proceed to do quickly and automatically." 

This is the same with humans.  We are born with prepared learning capabilities to perform many cultural traits.  We are born with the tendency to adhere to a governing body, to use symbolic gestures to promote that body, and sometimes to blindly follow that body ignoring all their problems in the face of a stern father figure who tells them that all will be great if they listen to him and use their ingrown hatred for others to perpetuate divisiveness and serve to keep that figure in power through this fear and hatred.  Like the bunting, we too have tendencies, though unlike the bunting, many of ours are more direction guides than instinct givers. 

It is imperative to note that we do not necessarily blindly follow our instincts and thus are not metaphorical slaves to our genetic coding.  We don't just follow lines, whether man-made or genetically made. 

"It is possible to estimate roughly the relative strictness of controls on various categories of behavior.  Genetic studies based on the comparison of identical and fraternal twins suggest that primary mental abilities and perceptual and motor skills are most influenced by heredity, while personality traits are least influenced.  If this important result is confirmed by additional studies, the inference to be drawn is that the abilities needed to cope with relatively invariant problems in the physical environment develop along narrow channels, while the qualities of personality, which represent adjustments to the rapidly shifting social environment, are more malleable." 

So some hereditary features push us through a narrow valley, tightly regulating our actions in that regard, like creating incest taboos to diminish interbreeding. 

Whereas other heredity features are less directive and more malleable by culture, a wider valley if you will, with more options for straying (though not hopping over the edge of the valley to the other side).  This would equate to personality issues like how a girl who goes to UCLA might start talking a certain way, acting a certain way, flirting a certain way, and overall changing due to the environment she comes into contact with. 

And oh how we revel in the power of culture. 

Next Up: Features of Sociobiology

Edward Wilson and Sociobiology

This is the second entry on Edward Wilson's "On Human Nature."  The first is Edward Wilson: On Human Nature.

- After getting a brush up on the materialism of the mind and the evolution of the brain, it is now time to investigate the prospect of sociobiology.  Sociobiology is not a theory that is only attributable to humans.  In fact, Wilson found it by studying ants and other animals and then found that it also could apply to the more intricate human cultural system. 

When Wilson studied insects like ants, he saw that certain biological traits in the species promoted certain societal aspects of their population.  When you study an ant population, perhaps the most intriuing aspect is the amazing amount of division of labor evident.  This occurs because of biological traits within the species, one of which is haplodiploidy. 

AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!   Haplodiploidy is the word of the day! 

-Haplodiploidy is the trait in ants, bees, wasps, and others in which fertilized eggs produce females and those left unfertilized produce males.  This is a genetic trait that seems to have been introduced about 150 million years ago in primitive wasps.  This trait accidentally caused highly advanced forms of social life, because it "causes sisters to be more closely related to each other than mothers and daughters, and so females may derive genetic profit from becoming a sterile caste specialized for the rearing of sisters.  Sterile castes engaged in rearing siblings are the essential feature of social organization in the insects." 

- The profit at the time that haplodiploidy gave to the wasps is unknown, but it might have been a source of control over populations.  Nonetheless, over time it gave rise to fertile individuals producing primarily females, whose sisterhood no longer made individual survival necessary.  If they divided labor amongst sterile castes, then the survival of the species was greatly increased, and the individual could be sacrificed for the whole.  It is in this way that the biology of a species determines the society in which it is most likely to prosper.  Then the societal order promotes that specific trait in the offspring. 

Much like the busty beautiness of Marilyn Monroe and her contemporaries may have made it more likely that girls with big bazongas (who showed them off) would get better mates.  And if you aren't beautiful like she, do what she did and fix yourself superficially so you will be!!  What is to follow is a generation of women showing more and looking similar, and that notion of beauty affects who will be a better choice for offspring.

Here is the basic structure of the notion of sociobiology. 

- Through this amazingly helpful visual, we can see the circular nature of evolution affecting biology, biology affecting culture/society, and culture then affecting the biological evolution of a species.

- If my stunningly clarifying diagram is correct, then the only exterior inputs necessary to believe are that "biology affects behavior", and that "individuals affect the culture of a species".  Many people seem to put a divide between biology and culture.  But if our biology is a determining factor in our behavior (as discussed in the previous entry), and culture/society is not a free-floating phenomena that moves on its own but is grounded in behavior, then the biology of a species affects the society.  Furthermore, it allows culture to be flexible to the changing needs of a species.  The most important element is then that culture has the power to affect who in the species will be most likely to pass on their and their family's genes. 

And like with our friend Marilyn, we can demonstrate how culture would affect the genetics of our biological offspring.  (Actually, as we will see next, the culture of Marilyn-ness probably didn't have any real genetic effect on the human species, but it's still an example of culture affecting what is more attractive in a mate - and she's hot.)

Next Up: Sociobiology and Humans
   

Edward Wilson: On Human Nature

Edward O. Wilson (1929 - )

- Biologist, Professor at Harvard
- Made famous by work with ants, discovering the pheromones used in their communication
- Previously discussed on MC Philo for his work Consilience
Positions Defended: Unity of scientific thought, Reductionism, Truth in Nature
Those Who are Wrong: Deconstructionists, Rorty, Religions, Rationalists, Skeptics
Work Discussed: On Human Nature

- In Wilson's work Consilience, we saw how he was promoting the unifying of the sciences such that the human species could ultimately attain the most basic and beautiful of understandings of our world and universe.  It would be an understanding based on mathematical representations of the world such that they corresponded exactly to phenomena and their systems.  In this work, On Human Nature, we are taking a step back in time, to an earlier work of his mostly focusing on his new concept "sociobiology".  In 1975, Wilson published Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, a scientific tome of his new idea that biology affects the social life of species, in which he also included human beings as animals whose societal functions were ultimately due to their biology.  Outrage from social scientists and humanities professors soon ensued, with harsh charges of social darwinism, and other characterizations.  This work, On Human Nature, is a more lay-person friendly account of this theory and a defense of his true meanings. 

Evolution

In order to understand sociobiology, we first must understand the tenets of evolution (hopefully, dear reader, you have a basic knowledge of this, for I shan't go over all the ins and outs and whathaveyous). How humans came to be how they are, and how all animals came to be, is due to the process of natural selection in which genetic changes made in a species that were most advantageous and receptive to change were passed along.  We can see traces of it in old bones dug up, like our Friend above, that were ancestors of ours who weren't as badass (to use a Stephenson term).  And sometimes these old genes can be seen in modern people:

(Yes, this is Sheldon Williams of Duke fame, who fights for title of ugliest NBA player with Chris Kamen)

- Evolution has been responsible for amazingly intricate processes in animal and plant bodies.  Perhaps the most amazing product is the brain, and the most badass of those is the human brain.  Knowing that the human brain is a product of evolution, we must then infer that the reason for its current form is because it gave some advantage to early humans.  We have the tendency to think of the mind as an elusive, sometimes non-material, thinking entity in the brain - a place where senses resonate and higher-minded functions occur.  But there is no difference between the brain and the mind, and the brain has evolved for a plethora of reasons, "The human mind is a device for survival and reproduction, and reason is just one of its various techniques."

A common way to think of this is if you think of the brain as represented by a  large factory with many pipes.  The pipes all work in concert with each other to perform many different functions necessary to keep the factory as a whole functioning.  If we think of the neurons as these pipes, then we can envision how, on a much smaller yet more complicated scale, they interact to perform all the functions necessary for survival.  The thought is, if we could only enlarge the neurons in the brain to this size, the mystery of the "mind" would be destroyed. 

- Once we realize that our brains, and thus what we think of as our "mind", is a fully material substance that evolved for very specific reasons, it is easier to understand certain patterns in human beings.  Humans are animals that needed to survive and reproduce and though it's more complicated than that, other actions in the brain are correlated to those very basic functions. 

"There are three basic components of genetic fitness: increased personal survival, increased personal reproduction, and the enhanced survival and reproduction of close relatives who share the same genes by common descent."

So don't worry that you masturbate every day - its because of evolutionary tendency

Don't think bad of men who use huge guns to defend their homes - its because of evolutionary tendency

And don't judge people who voted for Bush - its because they're fucking stupid or too greedy (and evolution will deal with them - well, maybe, they do seem to have a lot of kids)

Human Nature

- So if our brains are composed of material stuff and that material stuff was formed because it was most advantageous to our specific species, then there will be a level to which these brains function in similar ways.  Mutation and change within a species is healthy and natural, so not all people are exactly the same - our brains all have different, unique aspects.  But there are many functions of the brain that will be similar for all people, and it is here that we find Human Nature. 

"Particularities in decision making distinguish one human being from another.  But the rules followed are tight enough to produce a broad overlap in the decisions taken by all individuals and hence a convergence powerful enough to be labelled human nature." 

- There is a reason why we all have the same exact reactions to happy or pleasurable experiences...

To smile

That chimps smile in the same way is no accident, we have extraordinarily similar genes to the chimp, and display many of the same actions and social patterns. 

- Our genes are patterned to program us in a way that can only be described as Human.  Luckily for us, the traits that make us human are more limited and idiosyncratic than probably all other animals in the world.  But, according to Wilson, that there are traits that make us act specifically human is without doubt. 

-After this brush-up on materialism, next we will focus on how this evolutionarily formed human nature interacts with society. 

Next Up: Wilson and Sociobiology

Berkeley and the Immediate God

This is the fourth and final entry on Berkeley's "Principles of Human Knowledge."  The first is George Berkeley: The Principles of Human Knowledge, the second Berkeley and Disproving Abstraction, the third Berkeley and Matter.

- In the previous entries, we have seen how Berkeley goes about his project of changing the way we think about our world.  By disproving the idea of abstraction, he is able to show that once abstraction goes, the notion of a substratum of matter goes with it.  If we can only know the world through individual sensory experience, then we cannot logically know that there is some consistent thing termed "matter" of which things consist.  The next step is to determine how all these sensory experiences get received by perceiving beings, for if there is no matter, then there must be another something that supplies us with these perceptions. 

Definitions

Skepticism - the critical examination of whether knowledge and perceptions are actually true and whether we can achieve absolute knowledge.  (wikipedia)

Where Ideas Come From

- Once Berkeley establishes that there are only two substances in the world, Spirits and Ideas, he must give a logical explanation for how the Spirits receive Ideas.  As was noted in the last entry, these two substances are completely different from each other. 

If we are dealing with apples and oranges (spirits and ideas) then surely the apple tree cannot produce the oranges, just as spirits cannot produce ideas.  Spirits, or those who perceive, can be thought of as receptacles for sensory stimuli.  They can only think, perceive, and have a sketchy form of will (that unfortunately we will not address).  So if it is not the spirits who are producing the ideas, where do they come from?  It can't come from things that are similar to ideas that exist out in the world, providing us with ideas.

"But, you say, though the ideas themselves do not exist without the mind, yet there may be things like them, whereof they are copies or resemblances, which things exist without the mind in an unthinking substance.  I answer, an idea can be like nothing but an idea; a colour or figure can be like nothing but another colour or figure.  If we look but never so little into our thoughts we shall find it impossible for us to conceive a likeness except between our ideas." 

So things we perceive to be different cannot be anything alike.  But wait!  What if we take say light and sound, and compare that they are alike in that they are both made of waves (or maybe they are actually quanta - not to be discussed here), then aren't we taking two things that seem different to our senses, but are not completely different?  Ah, but if you recall, Berkeley has already headed this off with his disproof of abstraction.  If we can't have an absolute thing "light" or "sound", but only individual perceptions, then how can they in any way be the same? 

"insomuch that it is impossible for an idea to do anything, or strictly speaking, to be the cause of anything: neither can it be the resemblance or pattern of any active being...Whence it plainly follows that extension, figure, and motion cannot be the cause of our sensations." 

Lets take our frat-daddy from Berkeley (a school named for a man he's never thought of, heard of, or cared to inquire about). If he goes out an has a raging good time at one of his huge parties with sweet looking chicks, it is normal for him to think that the alcohol that he consumes is the reason for his drunkeness, and probably the reason he was able to shove his tongue down a girl's throat who he had never met. 

In the morning when he wakes up (mysteriously alone) it is normal for him to think that a substance called alcohol made him directly feel this way.  But as we have seen, this can't possibly be the case.  So what caused these ideas of pain, and scarce recollections of his honey pie from the night before?  It wasn't another perceiving spirit and it wasn't some other idea. 

- In fact, these perceptions are from an immediate God.  Its so simple!  God did it.   A God who not only saw everything he did the night before, but actually provided him with all those sinful perceptions of the actions his spirit willed.

"I find the ideas actually perceived by Sense have not a like dependence on my will.  When in broad daylight I open my eyes, it is not in my power to choose whether I shall see or no, or to determine what particular objects shall present themselves to my view; and so likewise as to the hearing and other senses; the ideas imprinted on them are not creatures of my will.  There is therefore some other  Will or Spirit that produces them." 

- Berkeley is here able to create a God that is not just a Great Creator, a Grand Planner, a Prime Mover, instead, by disproving abstraction and matter, he can implement a God that is so intimate with each and every one of our lives that every single sense we have is directly from His origin.  We have been fooled by scientists and philosophers to think there is something out there, some substratum, but in reality, it is only His providing of immaterial ideas directly into our minds.  As stated in earlier entries, this notion from Berkeley comes at an integral time in history.  A time when God's providence in the world was being diminished by other supposed "Christians", especially Newton, who had relegated God to a Grand Planner, a Being whose divinity created the perfect order of the universe and let it go on its course.  Berkeley reintroduced the immediate and immensely personal God.

Consistency

- Many a rejection to this notion of the immediate God circles around the idea of consistency in the world.  If when I leave the desk I'm at, and nobody else is there to perceive it, does it still exist? 

Furthermore, when our Berkeley frat daddy's are partying, why is it that they all experience the same thing?  And what about when one of them passes out in a lonely bathroom, does it still exist while he's dead asleep? 

- The direct answer is that they do not exist when not being perceived, for there is nothing there to actually be perceived, "yet it will unavoidably follow, from the principles which are now generally admitted, that the particular bodies, of what kind soever, do none of them exist whilst they are not perceived."  This doesn't actually mean that everything vanishes when we close our eyes, for 2 reasons.  1) there is no matter to actually vanish  2) the perfection of God assures that he supplies consistency in the world (this is why supposed "natural laws" like Newtons seem to work so well, cause God is perfect and what else would you expect?).  Through this consistency, we can also assert that the ideas still exist because there is a witness to them - God.  He keeps the whole engine running and therefore there is no reason to assume that he would let the ideas dissipate just because you closed your eyes. 

The Perfect God and All You Skeptics

- Many people have proclaimed Berkeley the ultimate skeptic for these views, mostly because they view it as nothing actually existing.  He counters that his views are the height of empiricism, and the belief in matter is the real route to skepticism. 

"for, so long as men through that real things subsisted without the mind, and that their knowledge was only so far forth real as it was comformable to real things, it follows they could not be certain they had any real knowledge at all.  For how can it be known that the things which are perceived are conformable to those which are not perceived, or exist without the mind?" 

- If we are to believe as Descartes did, that our perceptions are never to be trusted, then the notion of skepticism is open to run ramped.  It is a slippery slope from saying that our inabilities to find truth are based on ill-informed perceptions to the belief that we have no way to know true knowledge.  Under Berkeley, we know true knowledge - God gives us perceptions.  There can be no Grand Deceiver, as in Descartes, for how could God deceive us and be anything but perfect?

Furthermore, for all you people who think that matter does exist, and use it to your advantage through that thing called "abstaction", not only are you wrong, but you're a heretic.  So fuck you Darwin - you've been fucking the good name of God for too long, and its time to set the record straight.

"How great a friend material substance has been to Atheists in all ages were needless to relate.  All their monstrous systems have so visible and necessary a dependence on it that, when this corner-stone is once removed, the whole fabric cannot choose but fall to the ground, insomuch that it is no longer worth whole to bestow a particular consideration on the absurdities of every wretched sect of Atheists." 

-Thankfully for us all, the ideas of Berkeley have persisted on through the ages, while those Aetheist heretics Darwin, Newton, Einstein and the like have become only a footnote in the history of thought. 

(this entry brought to you directly from God Himself)

Berkeley and Matter

This is the third entry on Berkeley's "Principles of Human Knowledge".  The first entry is George Berkeley: The Principles of Human Knowledge, the second is Berkeley and Disproving Abstraction.

- In the previous entries, we saw how Berkeley sets the stage for his destruction of the notion of matter.  His first attack is on the idea of abstraction, which he deems unfathomable because our minds can only think of particulars.  Scholars like Locke and Newton had attempted to fill people's heads with nonsensical notions of abstraction, like gravity or liberty.  Investigating further, Berkeley determined the root for this commonly held misconception - language.  It is through the deception of words that the notion of abstraction gets spread.  Once we can rid our discourse of abstracted terms and focus on legitimate words, we can begin to address the main thesis of Berkeley's work - that matter doesn't exist. 

Definitions

Substratum - The substance that supports attributes of reality

Sensory Perception

- If abstraction existed, then we could reasonably assume that what we saw in the world was representative of many different things with important commonalities, and not just a specific example.  It is this abstraction that leads us to assume that all the things we encounter in the world, whether through sight, smell, taste, feeling, or hearing are made up of the same thing - what we call matter.  If we no longer used the tool of abstraction, then it would be illegitimate to assume that every sensory perception we received came from a similar source, some kind of matter out there in the world. 

When we see an image of an astronaut on the moon, there is a shocking sight behind him.  A world that we have never experienced, a rock moon devoid of life.  And yet the vision is not as disturbing to us, because the "stuff" we see behind him is just another version of the matter we experience here on Earth.  By abstracting the idea of our "rocks on Earth" to "rocks", we are able to easily comprehend the matter that exists on the moon, for it is of the same kind as we are used to. 

- For Berkeley, after the misleading concept of abstraction is dismissed, the idea that the "stuff" we see behind our astronaut is the same as what we experience here is nullified.  Without the power of abstraction, we cannot assume that the "stuff" is anything like what we experience. 

"It is said extension is a mode or accident of Matter, and that Matter is the substratum that supports it.  Now I desire that you would explain to me what is meant by Matter's supporting extension...If we inquire into what the most accurate philosophers declare themselves to mean by material substance, we shall find them acknowledge they have no other meaning annexed to those sounds but the idea of Being in general, together with the relative notion of its supporting accidents.  The general idea of Being appeareth to me the most abstract and incomprehensible of all other; and as for its supporting accidents, this, as we have just now observed, cannot be understood in the common sense of those words"

So if you climb a mountain

Or feel the wind in your hair

  Or touch your first ever boob,

You aren't experiencing the feel/sight of a substratum that constitutes that thing.  In fact, we can't even see what it is that blows our hair, or experience the weight of the mountain, or know what truly constitutes those boobs.  But the answers to those mysteries are not to be found out there in the world, for they are individual sensory receptions. 

-Once we acknowledge that the substratum can't logically be acknowledged because the notion of abstraction is false, the whole normal idea of our world falls apart.  All we have left that we can talk intelligibly about is Sensory Perception.  That is all we know, that each of us receives certain stimuli.  Nothing more. 

Perception is Being

- Once abstraction and hence any logical underpinning for matter is dissolved from our discussion, all we have to consider is the sensory perception that we experience and how we experience it.

- If we can't trust the fact that what we experience in the world is out there, then the only thing we logically can trust is that we perceive something.  But if that stuff doesn't exist, then the only thing we can truly account for are those perceiving beings. 

"There was an odour, that is, it was smelt; there was a sound, that is, it was heard; a colour or figure, and it was perceived by sight or touch.  This is all that I can understand by these and the like expressions.  For as to what is said of the absolute existence of unthinking things without any relation to their being perceived, that seems perfectly unintelligible.  Their esse is percepi, nor is it possible they should have any existence out of the minds or thinking things which perceive them."

- The statement "esse is percepi" is key here and often attributed to Berkeley.  It is often translated as "To be is to be perceived".  An obvious derivation of Descartes' "I think therefore I am."  Whereas Descartes believed that you could not trust your senses for fear of the Ultimate Deceiver and therefore can only trust that you think, Berkeley counters that your senses are all that you have in the world and your thinking is dependent upon them (we will see later why there is no chance of the Great Deceiver cheating our senses).

Though I know that I've done many things with my own two hands, I can't pretend to know that they actually exist, that is, that there is some substratum of matter that makes them up or whatever they grab.  All of those things are merely sensory perceptions and they only exist as perceptions.  The only thing I know is that because I perceive, I exist. 

"Hence, as it is impossible for me to see or feel anything without an actual sensation of that thing, so is it impossible for me to conceive in my thoughts any sensible thing or object distinct from the sensation or perception of it...To be convinced of which, the reader need only reflect, and try to separate in his own thoughts the being of a sensible thing from its being perceived."

Spirits and Ideas

- If matter is gone and perception is everything, then the amount of substances in the world dwindles.  In fact, we can only assume that there are two substances: Spirits and Ideas. 

Spirit - "Only that which thinks, wills, and perceives"
Ideas - "Inert, fleeting, dependent beings, which subsist not by themselves, but are supported by, or exist in minds or spiritual substances."

- It is important to note that the ideas which we perceive do actually exist, but they only exist in our minds.  This may seem a trifling point to many, but Berkeley does not preach a skepticism; he posits that those things exist, but only in idea form not in matter form (the ramifications of this to be discussed in the next entry).

Like our deaf, dumb, blind , and bodiless Stevie Wonder here, we are receptacles for information from the world.  And yet we are not even born with the faculties to comprehend all the things that actually are in the world.  In fact, we can't even comprehend 1 of the 2 substances in the world - spirits. 

- Though this seems to be a blow to Berkeley's perfection of the senses stance, he dismisses it readily, "it is not more reasonable to think our faculties defective, in that they do not furnish us with an idea of spirit or active thinking substance, than it would be if we should blame them for not being able to comprehend a round square."   The reason for this is that in the world that Berkeley has enlightened us all to there are only 2 substances, ideas and spirits, and they are completely different substances.  These substances are so different, serve such different purposes, that it is absurd that we should consider that a spirit could act like an idea and be perceived. 

- The obvious questions to be answered are, how do we receive these ideas?/ how is it that a world void of matter could possibly supply us with stimuli?/ who or what is it that upholds this tenuous world?  The answer is rather simple.

Next Up - Berkeley and an Immediate God

Berkeley and Disproving Abstraction

This is the second entry on Berkeley's work, "The Principles of Human Knowledge", the first is George Berkeley: The Principles of Human Knowledge

Definitions

Matter - the substance of which a physical object is composed

Abstraction - a concept or idea not associated with a specific instance

- In the previous entry, Berkeley's position on the source of our sensory inputs was expressed; they come from an active and immediately intimate God who supplies all our senses with stimuli.  Thus, there is no such thing as matter.  The underlying mass that we attribute to the objects we come in contact with is a fallacy, for all those sensations are are our perceptions of God's input.  Berkeley doesn't just preach this, however, he uses rather sound philosophical arguments to make his point. 

Disproving Locke

- As any avid reader of MC Philosophy will know, John Locke was a 17th century philosopher who established a theory of how we perceive the world and how we think about it. 

Here is a representation of how he proposed it worked:

- Locke was widely influential at the time and his system makes good sense.  Berkeley takes great offense with just about every step of this theory.  The part he attacks specifically is the idea that once the mind receives sensory input, it reflects upon these inputs and generalizes them into broader abstract ideas.  Locke states, "The having of general ideas is that which puts a perfect distinction betwixt man and brutes, and is an excellency which the faculties of brutes do by no means attain unto."  What makes us human and intelligent is the capability of abstraction. 

My old dog used to eat his own shit.  He had the sensory perception of a substance that obviously didn't smell or look all that bad, and therefore there was no problem in eating that substance (his pallet was not terribly refined).  If he had the power of abstraction, he would understand that that thing which he was eating was the same as the thing that came out of his ass.  Knowing that he didn't eat it right after it came out, I know that he didn't specifically enjoy the thing that came out of him.  The change from fresh to old shit was confusing and he would have needed an abstract notion of the substance in order to group them together.  But his limited powers of recognition and abstraction disabled him from generalizing all shit into a common substance.  He could grasp fresh shit and old shit, but not the abstracted idea of shit. 

- Locke thinks we have the power to use abstraction; Berkeley thinks it is a worthless and misleading practice. 

- Berkeley at first attacks the notion that we can give specific traits to a general term.  He uses the idea of abstracting humans,

"it is said we come by the abstract idea of man, or if you please, humanity, or human nature; wherein it is true there  is included colour, because there is no man but has some colour, but then it can be neither white, nor black, nor any particular colour wherein all men partake.  So likewise there is included stature, but then it is neither tall stature, nor low stature, nor yet middle stature, but something abstracted from all these.  And so of the rest."

He may be right about this

- According to Berkeley, the use of abstract words and the ideas of abstract ideas are a fallacy.  Every time we think of something we are thinking of a specific something.  The abstract words we use, like "human", do not represent an abstract idea, as Locke would suggest, but rather, they represent a plethora of specific ideas, "But it seems that a word becomes general by being made the sign, not of an abstract general idea, but of several particular ideas, any one of which it indifferently suggest to the mind."  So we have the power to generalize ideas, like saying "human" for many a particular things, but we cannot abstract - we do not have the power to make an "abstract" form of the human that represents all humanity. 

Unfortunately for Berkeley, we now have specific reasons for saying "human".  It is not based on words or description, but on the genetic difference between the human species and all others, such that inter-breeding between the human and another species doesn't produce living hybrids.  Then again, the notion of "human" is no longer abstract, but concrete; it is a specific species.  The problem for Berkeley really lies in how we came to this discovery - through abstract theories that proved conclusive and irreproachable. 

Destroying Science

- The notion of having abstract ideas enables us to make claims that pertain to more than just specific instances.  If we cannot make an abstract claim, or effectively use an abstract word, then we are completely constrained from making laws about the world that pertain to natural phenomena.  Scientists don't just make experiments in order to show what will happen in that particular instance.  They try to set up experiments that will enable them to make abstract general ideas that can apply to all similar circumstances (since each particular circumstance is necessarily somewhat different). 

"When men consider the great pains, industry, and parts that have for so many ages been laid out on the cultivation and advancement of the sciences, and that notwithstanding all this the far greater part of them remains full of darkness and uncertainty, and disputes that are like never to have an end, and even those that are thought to be supported by the most clear and cogent demonstrations contain in them paradoxes which are perfectly irreconcilable to the understandings of men, and that, taking all together, a very small portion of them does supply any real benefit to mankind, otherwise than by being an innocent diversion and amusement...But this may perhaps cease upon a view of the false principles that have obtained in the world, amongst all which there is none, methinks, hath a more wide extended sway over the thoughts of speculative men than this as abstract general ideas."

  I wonder if Berkeley would've refused to use the microwave oven

The Problem of Words

- After discrediting the notion of abstract ideas because we do not have the capability to comprehend anything but specific sensations, Berekely turns to the root of this common mistake - words. 

- When we talk we use abstract words that supposedly represent an abstract idea - "Freedom" comes to mind.  But these words are facades that inhibit us from true understanding.  Berkeley uses the example of "triangle"

  Triangle - A plain surface comprehended by three right lines. 

- But this broad definition is rather unhelpful.  It does not tell us "whether the sides are long or short, equal or unequal, nor with what angles they are inclined to each other."  It describes an abstract triangle, one that in a way doesn't exist.  But when you think of a triangle, you do not think of a hazy glob with three sides, methinks, but you think of a specific triangle, maybe one like the one above, maybe a different type, but you think of something, not anything with 3 sides. 

"Consequently there is no one settled idea which limits the signification of the word triangle.  It is one thing for to keep a name constantly to the same definition, and another to make it stand everywhere for the same idea; the one is necessary, the other useless and impracticable." 

- Berkeley doesn't think that words should be abandoned, just the useless abstract terms.  People should focus on those words which correspond with their knowledge of the world, and not with "all that dress and incumbrance of words which so much contribute to blind judgment and divide the attention."

- Once we realize that the abstraction and thus science are useless endeavors, we can more effectively realize his conception of the world.

Next Up - Berkeley and Matter

-

George Berkeley: The Principles of Human Knowledge

George Berkeley  (1685 - 1753)

- Irish Bishop

- City and school in California named after him, though pronunciation changed from Barkley to Berkly

- Widely respected, though very rarely followed philosopher

Those Who are Wrong - Anybody with instincts, Just about all philosophers, Atheists, Scientists, Newtonians, John Locke, People who like metaphors, People who actually think they encounter something called "matter"

Position Defended - Subjective Idealism, God as the immediate cause, Non-existence of matter

Work Discussed - Principles of Human Knowledge

To start with Berkeley, it will be helpful to tell a tale.  In this case, it could be called an allegory: 

There once was a young boy who enjoyed all types of play, that is, all play that didn't include his younger, annoying sister.  He would invite over friends and they would play all day long, but sometimes his pesty sister would want to play.  One day, specifically, his sister wanted to play so bad, that her exclusive older brother decided that he and his friend would run away from her.  She followed in hot pursuit, being that she was deceivingly fast.  She was so fast that the boy and his friend could not outrun the determined sister.  He could not believe his eyes at how fast she was, but his eyes couldn't lie.  They made a mad dash for the boy's bedroom, to exclude her from the room by locking it.  As they made it into the room and shut the door quickly, both let out a sigh of relief.  The boy's relief was tempered, however, due to the patter of feet running around his room.  Of course! she was going to enter through the door that connected his room with his brothers.  As the daring sister made her way to the other door, she saw it opened and seized her chance.  She stuck her hand into the gap of the doorway, when, suddenly, the door swung closed with all possible violence.  In looking at her hand, the little girl saw that her pinkie finger was disconnected from her hand, dangling by some feeble skin.  At once her wales began and alerted the rest of the house.  She ran downstairs, where the rest of the family came to her aid, shocked at the sight.  When asking what had happened, there was no reply, just sobs.  When her brother came to the top of the stair, the family alertly looked up and asked, "What happened!!"  The boy looked down at the family, put his hands in the air, and without mirth, stated "God Did It."  There was no response.

The Immediacy of God

- Berkeley's main objective in his work is to bring God back to the forefront of people's encounters with the world.  At the time of his writing, there were people like Newton who were forming a new role for God in the world; He was relegated to the Ultimate Designer and nothing more.  In Berkeley's famous work, The Principles of Human Knowledge, he used the extreme logic of empiricism to find a way for God to be once again an integral and immediate part of human's encounters with their world; he disproved Matter.  

According to Berkeley, the boy in our story is correct, and shouldn't be questioned.  It could not have been his actions that shut the door, for the force of the door slamming doesn't exist.  In fact, no matter exists.  The only way that a thing exists is in our perception of it.  This is where the adage eternally equated to Berkeley comes in:

"To be is to be perceived."  

- The underlying matter of the door doesn't exist.  The abstract notion of some sort of mass that makes up the constitution of things is a big lie perpetuated throughout humans.  In fact, what we assume to be a thing composed of matter, is nothing more than an idea implanted in our head by an all-powerful and immediately-perceptible God.  Not that we can perceive God, as in see Him through our senses, but in every sensory perception we receive, we are the receptacle of an idea given to us directly from God.  So there is no way that humans can manipulate matter or cause something to actually move, for all they are doing is playing their part in God's play of ideas.  All humans can do is receive the images, sounds, feelings, and tastes that God implants in them.  Our playful boy could never have physically shut a mass we call a door and crushed his sisters finger, for all there was in that interaction was different perceptions being given to the Spirits involved; unfortunately for the sister, in this case, the perception given to her was that of a bloody, disembodied finger.  

God did it

God did it

God did it

God did it

Ultimate Empiricism

- To many, this might seem like the ultimate form of skepticism, that nothing exists except ideas.  In fact, this is an ultimate form of Empiricism.  Berkeley goes about his effort by determining that we can't know anything at all except what we receive from our senses.  The fact that we think that our senses perceive things that are there independent of our perception of them is merely a classic mistake made by humans and perpetuated by science.  If we can only know the exact things that we perceive, then how can we abstract things we perceive into an unknown thing called "matter"?  We can't see this abstract "matter", and any attempt to is only relying on more sensation. 

- When the final ramifications of his ultimate empiricism come through, Berkeley explains how it is that we see, hear, taste, and feel things: they are inputs from God.  Since we have no sensory reason to believe in an underlying substratum that constitutes things, the inevitable conclusion is that it doesn't exist, right?  And if matter doesn't exist, then it must be a God that tinkers in every possible facet of human experience who gives us the gift of sensory experience.   

- We'll discover how this comes about in the following entries.  Coming Soon!!

Next Up: Berkeley and Disproving Abstraction