P1: I have perceived a black raven
P2: I have perceived a black raven
P3: I have perceived a black raven
....
....
....
P100: I have perceived a black raven.
Conclusion: All ravens are black.
Unfortunately NOOOOT; yet nearly all forms of scientific reasoning rely on that exact form of logical analysis you might think... Inductive reasoning... Very much so!! Thus it is a great shame really, that we can never be certain about all these amazing theories and laws, for they have all been derived from experience but not deduction... The reason for this dilemma is HUME! His critique of causality has deprived us from the very possibility to justify such sayings as "knowing for certain, I am sure, I know".. Justified True Belief is BS, as Gettier has shown.. (This is why I have fled to the ancient school of Athens a while ago, desperately trying to provide my Platonic master with new forms evidence, for his theory is the only potential escape from disaster (A bit like Houdini really, which is awesome, because I love Houdini))
Anyways, more on that later, lets focus on Hume in the meanwhile... Imagine a game of Snooker, the type of occasion we all enjoy.. The white ball gets hit by the cue (E1), colliding with another ball (E2), not white but red... the red ball is composed to initiate motion, obviously heavily dependent on the angle and the force of the white ball.. Now, unless you are a sceptic, reaaaally strange or mentally retarded, if I was to ask you why the red ball moved, you would cite the white ball as the origin of that principle known to mankind as motion (since Newton published his Principia in 1678).. Unfortunately Hume belonged to the former category.. What makes matters even worse, HE'S RIGHT.. Hume shows that the only things we can assume are precedence in time, i.e. the fact that the white ball will move before the red one, contiguity in space and constant conjunction... Following on the empiricist line of reasoning, i.e. the school of thought that argues that all knowledge can be derived from experience, Hume demonstrates that there is no perceivable causal glue between these two events, E1 and E2. THEY CAN NOT BE PERCEIVED! The reason why we believe in a causal interaction existent between these two events is not a result of nature but a result of a certain principle within our mind... There is no link between E1 and E2... The outer sentiments are not causally related! I hope you can see how this notorious problem of causation lies at the heart of the problem of induction...
Let's proceed to the connection between Plato and Hume.. As I have tried to outline before, I used to always think that Hume does away with the notion of a priori knowledge (as you would expect by a philosopher who sits at the complete opposite side of the table)... Yet, as I have learned this morning, Hume has contradicted his whole thesis within his "Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding" (commonly regarded as one of the most influential books of all time). What great news! Both me and Plato were weeping tears of joy... (well at least I was, pretty certain Plato was too, he must have been(!?))... The invisible link between these two greatest thinkers of all time is a simple colour.. BLUE.. To be more precise, the missing shade within a certain set of blues... Let's quote the exact passage within Hume's book...
"Suppose a person to have enjoyed his sight for thirty years, and to have become perfectly acquainted with colours of all kinds, except one particular shade of blue, for instance, which it never has been his fortune to meet with. Let all the different shades of that colour, except that single one, be placed before him, descending gradually from the deepest to the lightest; it is plain, that he will perceive a blank, where that shade is wanting, and will be sensible, that there is a greater distance in that place between the contiguous colours than in any other. Now I ask, whether it be possible for him, from his own imagination, to supply this deficiency, and raise up to himself the idea of that particular shade, though it had never been conveyed to him by his senses? I believe there are few but will be of opinion that he can: And this may serve as a proof, that the simple ideas are not always, in every instance, derived from the correspondent impressions; though this instance is so singular, that it is scarcely worth our observing, and does not merit, that for it alone we should alter our general maxim."
So there it is! Hume's concession that there might be such things as innate or a priori knowledge.. The exact thing that Plato has spend teaching all his life: A certain form within our soul that miraculously realizes the laws of nature, the only things that we can rightfully call true! In Hume's example, the man, although he had never experienced the missing shade of blue within all the other different shades, simply knew that there was one shade missing.. Just like the slave boy knew that he had found the solution to a certain problem although he had never done any mathematics before (if you haven't done so, I highly recommend to read upon this within the Socratic dialogue known as "The Meno")... They both had no sensory experience whatsoever, yet they mysteriously knew the answer... The reason, according to Plato, is the recollection of certain forms that exist within our soul from the moment that we were born..
The reason why Hume would suddenly decide to contradict his belief about a priori knowledge remains a mystery.. And I frankly don't care why he did... BUT HE DID!
Sure you are all really excited right now;)... I am more than happy to explain some of the terms I have carelessly rushed over during the course of this little philosophical realization that completely made my day...
Have a good one,
The One and Only, yours truly!
IL DIVINO
quelle magnifique epiphanie... la critique est en route
ReplyDeletehttp://blogs.nationalgeographic.com/blogs/intelligenttravel/2010/03/todays-pic-rare-black-penguin.html
ReplyDeletesorry jack, its juicy joosub here... and i might just be ruinging your day... allow me to elaborate my friend...
ReplyDeletei dont really think hume had intended to contradict his belief on a priori knowledge... from the quote you posted from his book, what i gather is that he is trying to say that we dont always need a substance, so to speak, in order to induce common sense. the man realizes that the colour is missing. so hume says that the man basically 'creates' this missing colour in his head in order to fill out the gap... in fact my poor friend hume is wrong. this poor man who think he's a gernius for figuring out the shade of the missing colour without a stimulus is in fact not so genius. the blank space was his stimulus, and in the event that it was not there, the man would not have exercised common sense, since there was no need to. am i making sense?
hume, our friend also said that this type of our event shouldnt call on us to edit our general maxim or whatever. in fact. it should bloody edit our thinking. what he did was give an example of a man and some colours and he didnt realize that he was actually describing something quite important. this example can help a keen mind distinguish between Plato's MENO and just plain 'common sense'..... THIS IS IMPORTANT BECAUSE WE NEED TO KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO IF WE WANT TO TALK ABOUT RATIONALE KNOWLEDGE AND KNOWLEDGE FROM EXPERIENCE! rationale can be seen as MENO or common sense, in truth... the two are quite different... together.... they create a mans most important gift. his ability to reason, and quantify the universe.
after i comment a but more on humes understanding of time i wana link it into more about the meno... im getting quite excited now.
humes theory, can assume that there is not link between the two balls hitting one another. there is no causal glue to hold the interaction of the balls together. all you know is that the white all was set in motion before the red ball... correct? sadly.... or ratehr quite amazingly.... here comes the meno. now for some of you who arent yet quite aquianted with the blueprint of the universe that you were born with then you might find what im about to say rather strange.. (blue print of the universe is basically the meno that plato was talking about, our almost divine understandiing of ALL with out us even knowing it) okay now lets link hume and the meno.
the truth is, when we zoom out, like realy zoom out and look at the universe as a whole, time, does NOT exist. it is a human fabrication in order to help us determine mechanical things such as speed, distance, weight, volume blah blah blah all down to 24hrs on your watch. IT IS AN ILLUSION. the truth is... that the universe should be though of as a single moment or event. everything is happening at once. the past present and future are all occurances which are happening, NOW. please dont get irratated if you dont understand what im saying... it will take time...(haha) for you to wrap your head around this bu when you do... wow wow wow...
no back to hume and the balls. what can we say? the truth is the interaction of two snooker balls is really unimportant therefore whether or not it happened really depends on who the dude was taking the shot. if he sucks he'll miss if he doesnt then the two balls hit okay?
the concept of the meno applies to more divine things, quantum relative things which we thing are too grey but are in fact black and white.... indeed i need more thought before i come to conclusions on THAT..
please feel free to debate... i love debates...
and if im not making sense point it out so that i can clarify.
i think ill start a blog jacob... what shall we call it? joosubvsjacob.com
great thoughts, must say that im not too involved with philosophy.
ReplyDeleteThats exactly the reason why Im very interested in the causes of your thoughts. Jacob basically introduced an article about hume and compared humes idea to his former beliefs (no a priori knowledge) and thus finds a similarity with plato. is that correct ? (1)
Hassan's argument of the first passage as far as I understand it, is the following:
He contradicts jacobs conclusion: creating a missing shade of blue, that has not been experienced before, in mind MEANS a priori knowledge.
How does he contradict it? He provides a stimulus (blank space). That in my opinion is logically inconsistent, because a stimulus for thought has nothing to do with the result of thought. The first is cause the second is result. The process that lays between them can be inspired by knowledge of any kind, let it be a priori or not.
Given the situation, that there wouldnt be a white space, the stimulus will lack in our experiment. But many people will see intuitively that there is a shade missing between to given shades of blue. Where is the stimulus? Now the stimulus is man's own ability to segment shades of colours. Now you can even think about: where does this ability of man come from? is it a priori, is it trained? as you will find out, it doesnt matter in our experiment. Why? We have a stimulus whatsoever and the process caused by a stimulus of any kind is independent, so to say any stimulus can cause a priori or non a priori result. Logically the counterargument doesn't apply to our discussion. (2)
The second part of Hassans post is not about jacobs core idea. It is about TIME and its conception - rather as hassan puts forward - misconception in man's mind. (linking to Meno)
Hassan, could you explain in a few words, where you derive from that if time as such doesn't exist, as a consequence sequency of experiences wont exist? (past, present and future falls together as you put it). (3)
I would be very interested in a confirmation for (1), counterarguments for (2) and explanations for (3).
I am very sorry for not having the philosophical knowledge as you guys, but still commenting on this blog. I find it very interesting how dialectic takes place in philosophy and to which extent of logic conclusions and counterarguments are presented.
Hope that you understand what i meant in the 3 paragraphs and excuse my lack of knowledge.
Thanks
You are indeed very clear on your questions and statements, haha, probably more than than i for that matter!
ReplyDeletei have had a history of being poor at conveying thoughts through writing, unfortunatley oral conversation is what im best at, nonetheless i will do my best to get to (1), (2) and (3).
for (1), i would confirm with you that which jacob is saying.... Hume who is supposedly the legendary follower of knowledge through experience and only experience has put forward an argument that infact contradicts his fundamental beleifes.
for (2), i think what i was trying to say is that the mans discovery of the shade of blue is in fact not from his a priori knowledge but from the stimulus of the missing shade... be it a blank space or not if he can tell that there is a shade missing this is the stimulus for his thought. if i am correct, i beleive you were saying, avid, that stiumuls for thought and though are unrelated? since thought does not require stimulus to occur? well i beleive contrary to that, here is why. all though whether KNOW it or not is stimulated by somee or other activity in the brain. for the moment let us call this stimulation the sub-conscious. ideas (stimuli) from the sub-consious precipitate down into the consious where they are processed into so called real time thoughts.... very often we do not consciously monitor the sub-conscious therefore, we are sort of unaware of all the stimulation that happen in them, be in obvious or not so obvious. perhaps what i was saying doesnt really apply to the man and the missing shade, but the point i was trying to make, forgive me if i failed, was that his ability to recognize the missing colour does not stem from the meno or from a priori knowledge... his recognition is one that is simply not profound enough to fall under the meno or a priori. in fact, what makes a priori knowledge so real is the controversy it causes. when something is too agreeable, like this missing discovered shade, it doesnt really call for debate. again, im not sure if im making any sense. sorry.
quite simply, for number (3) i cannot provide you with an explanation that is adequate for this discovery. the reason for my inability to do so may be summarized in an analogy. if for example i am a great archer and you want to know how i am so good at it you might ask me. i would indeed try to explain to you all the great techniques i use but at the end of the day that does not make you a great archer. your skills are developed on a personal journey of want for higher knowledge. with that desire, the universe will hopefully start to reveal certain secrets, fantastic really, or i might be talking rubbish, not sure, sorry again.
perhaps i can try in whatever way i can to shed some light into this for you. the most obvious thing to me is that if you want to beleive the universe in infinate, or the imagination is infinite, or at least anything you can relate with that is so to speak infinite, periods of segmented time will not exist finctionally within that realm, they would be bent twisted and distorted, therefore you cannot rely on them as REAL or RELIABLE. for example did you know that if you set two watches to exactly the same time and place one above the atmosphere and one on the ground the one above the atmosphere will be ticking slower... why? because the curvature of space, which creates gravity would no longer be effecting the watch above the atmosphere. clearly we all beleive that an hour is an hour, no matter what it will always remain constant and unaffected by event around it. so how can we still have this unversal belief when a simple experiment shows that space does infact distort so to speak our conceptions of time. it is not space that is weird or wrong but us who think that the flow of time is something measurable and independent... sorry again i have no clue if im making sense.
hope i shed a little light on something.
thanks!
Thanks for the answer Hassan!
ReplyDeleteRegarding 1, Thanks again!
(2): Independence between stimulus of thought and thought itself is neuroscientific. That exceeds, by far, my capacity of knowledge. What I believe is that the action of providing a stimulus for a thought or - what you will contradict - generating a thought in ones mind, relies on some knowledge, if th e consequence of the thought makes sense. I believe that knowledge, whatever its kind, is profound for thought. And as it happens to be, the fundament for guessing a shade of blue, that you havent experienced before physically, must be knowledge. A priori per Definition is that kind of knowledge, which you havent "gained" in your lifetime. You might have gained the knowledge, that there are different shades of colours, and/or that you can assort them, and/or that there is lighter and darker colours etc. But what you dont know, what is in fact not included in your sphere of knowledge is the exact shade of blue, that is missing. The rules and ideas for finding it may be in your mind, but the idea of the exact shade of blue, that we are looking for is not considered to be part of your knowledge (at least in our discussio).
Conclusion: The missing shade of blue must have been there in your mind before, since you are able to deduct it from your given knowledge.
If your really keen on discussing, and if we meet sometime in the future, the actually interesting thought here is: The Stimulus of your thought is the idea of a Missing shade of Blue itself.
(3) Studied one semester of physics and what I can say is that the twin paradox is not enough to prove that our concept of time is not adequate.Our Time is actually the amount of time, that light takes for a specific distance to pass. According to Einstein lightspeed is the same in all inertial systems (thats what we are talking about). Now we have an objective definition of time. It becomes subjective when talking relational, that means: Time changes when the perspective on it changes. Example: I watch a ball fly across the sky and a cardriver watches it fly. The speed of that ball is different considering which perspective is taken. Objects moving with lightspeed (light itself and rays) have the same speed, independent from which perspective you look at them. Now we have descriptions for several cases of thought depending on time. I believe that these definitions of time alltogether are enough to explain our experiment rather order in time.
But as I said before, 1 semester of physics is by far not enough to discuss!!! about distortion in dimensions (time and space).
Have a good one!