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David Longley

Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2003 5:09 pm

Guest

In message <3ff09a01.42954130@netnews.att.net>, Lester Zick
<lesterDELzick@worldnet.att.net> writes

Quote:

On Mon, 29 Dec 2003 18:46:10 +0000, David Longley
David@longley.demon.co.uk> in comp.ai.philosophy wrote:

See, David, the problem here is that you aren't qualified to think in
terms of ideas because you only deal in the ideas of other people.
When are you going to get some ideas of your own with which to
critique the ideas of others? But I digress. By all means get on with
the service. The father, son, and holy ghost no doubt. Let's worship
the behaviorist world without end. Amen.

I use other people's *words*, as do you (except that you're so arrogant
that you don't realise this).

Sure I recognize this. It's just that I also use original thoughts of
my own. You don't and don't seem to appreciate the distinction.

I don't think you know enough about yourself or others to know whether
you have said something original or not. That's *my* point. If you
actually read some of the material I've suggested you might find that
what you have to say is less original than you like to think. You might
also learn that originality is not all that it's made out to be.

Quote:

How do you know that Lester? How do you know whether you have something
to say?

Quote:

These matters are not a matter of "thinking" nor "debate". You're about
as ignorant as you could be when it comes to what radical behaviourism
(or evidential behaviourism) amounts to. I've suggested that you redress
that by doing some recommended reading. You haven't done this, yet you
say you have something to say about it all. You fabricate no end of
nonsense in lieu of learning something - and have the audacity to
criticise Glen and I for not "debating" your ignorance. If you were on a
course I was running I'd just throw you out for insufferable arrogance
and stupidity.

Quote:

Lester - go and READ about the material instead of posting your half
baked drivel about it. All you are doing is showing us all what you
don't understand. Just because there are others out there like yourself
doesn't make *you* look any less stupid for behaving this way - it just
speaks volumes about the folly of our natural folk psychology which has
been documented in detail by social psychologists etc for decades.

Quote:

Because like Glen I'm a psychologist and I've come across hundreds of
others like you. You can't see it any more than Zero, Michaels, Rickert,
Ozkural and many others posting to this newsgroup. What's quite clear is
that others can - usually because they *have* read and studied a little
more widely than you guys have. You all reveal as much by what you don't
say (and get right) as you do by what you *do* say and how you say it.
It's there in your behaviour.

--
David Longley

Lester Zick

Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2003 7:41 pm

Guest

On Mon, 29 Dec 2003 22:09:34 +0000, David Longley
<David@longley.demon.co.uk> in comp.ai.philosophy wrote:

Quote:

In message <3ff09a01.42954130@netnews.att.net>, Lester Zick
lesterDELzick@worldnet.att.net> writes
On Mon, 29 Dec 2003 18:46:10 +0000, David Longley
David@longley.demon.co.uk> in comp.ai.philosophy wrote:

See, David, the problem here is that you aren't qualified to think in
terms of ideas because you only deal in the ideas of other people.
When are you going to get some ideas of your own with which to
critique the ideas of others? But I digress. By all means get on with
the service. The father, son, and holy ghost no doubt. Let's worship
the behaviorist world without end. Amen.

I use other people's *words*, as do you (except that you're so arrogant
that you don't realise this).

Sure I recognize this. It's just that I also use original thoughts of
my own. You don't and don't seem to appreciate the distinction.

I don't think you know enough about yourself or others to know whether
you have said something original or not. That's *my* point. If you
actually read some of the material I've suggested you might find that
what you have to say is less original than you like to think. You might
also learn that originality is not all that it's made out to be.

On the other hand you might just consider pointing out what is not
original and exactly why. The issue isn't whether I know enough to be
original but whether you do. And if originality is not all it's
cracked up to be then I'll be tempted to settle for what's correct.

Quote:

I don't. That's your half of the conversation. My half is to comment
on your half. What I know is that what I have to say fits certain
criteria with respect to the interrelation of properties of all kinds.
And if you have something to say with respect to those criteria or
whether what I say fits those criteria then we have the basis of a
conversation. But if you're just going to whine and snivel that my
ideas don't fit your behaviorist perspective on behavior then we
don't. Your choice.

Quote:

If
you look a little more closely at what I have posted here and elsewhere,
you'll see that there's more to what I write than *just* other peoples'
words. For you to see that you'd have to read and understand what I've
written here and elsewhere. This is something you just haven't bothered
to do - and that's odd given your opposition.

See, David, the problem here is that you're trying to use scholarship
as a substitute for thinking. Then you try to debate the issue of your
scholarship versus someone elses as a substitute for discussing the
ideas you don't have.

These matters are not a matter of "thinking" nor "debate". You're about
as ignorant as you could be when it comes to what radical behaviourism
(or evidential behaviourism) amounts to. I've suggested that you redress
that by doing some recommended reading. You haven't done this, yet you
say you have something to say about it all. You fabricate no end of
nonsense in lieu of learning something - and have the audacity to
criticise Glen and I for not "debating" your ignorance. If you were on a
course I was running I'd just throw you out for insufferable arrogance
and stupidity.

Well rats have certainly been known to be insufferably arrogant and
stupid and I assume that's mostly who you teach.

I don't have any interest in radical or evidential behaviorism until
you and behaviorism can explain behavior. It's as simple as that.

Quote:

I reckon you're so wrapped up in your own muddles as a consequence of
your failure (for whatever reasons) to respect conventions. You've
learned some bad habits and they'll just get worse unless you take some
well meant advice.

How about if I take two well meant advices and call you in the
morning?

Lester - go and READ about the material instead of posting your half
baked drivel about it. All you are doing is showing us all what you
don't understand. Just because there are others out there like yourself
doesn't make *you* look any less stupid for behaving this way - it just
speaks volumes about the folly of our natural folk psychology which has
been documented in detail by social psychologists etc for decades.

Well follies are what you make of them and we seem to have done rather
well with Seward's folly. Unfortunately the same can't really be said
of Skinner's folly or Quine's folly or David's folly or Glen's folly.

Quote:

Do some of the reading that's been recommended, and try to block those
intrusive thoughts - treat them as "a lack of concentration". Try "The
Web of Belief", you don't have to accept what they say, but it will do
you more good than the sort of speculative thinking you're doing now.
--
And you know this how?

Because like Glen I'm a psychologist and I've come across hundreds of
others like you. You can't see it any more than Zero, Michaels, Rickert,
Ozkural and many others posting to this newsgroup. What's quite clear is
that others can - usually because they *have* read and studied a little
more widely than you guys have. You all reveal as much by what you don't
say (and get right) as you do by what you *do* say and how you say it.
It's there in your behaviour.

This puts me in mind of a throwaway line by the late Vince Edwards

playing the role of the brain surgeon Ben Casey back in the sixties
commenting to his mentor played by Sam Jaffe of Gunga Din fame. After
an encounter with a shrink he said to Jaffe that he had never met a
psychologist who didn't need one.

Regards - Lester

Michael Olea

Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2003 8:25 pm

Guest

in article f04e2625.0312291019.1d640eec@posting.google.com, Marvin Minsky at
minsky@media.mit.edu wrote on 12/29/03 10:19 AM:

Quote:

Michael Olea <oleaj@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:<BC147EAD.3788%oleaj@sbcglobal.net>...
in article ehvY5YBXmx7$EwMG@longley.demon.co.uk, David Longley at
David@longley.demon.co.uk wrote on 12/28/03 9:57 AM:

In article <3FEEFBCC.7080002@xympatico.ca>, Joe Legris
jalegris@xympatico.ca> writes
David Longley wrote:
In article <3FED9523.6@xympatico.ca>, Joe Legris
jalegris@xympatico.ca> writes

David Longley wrote:

In article <1461e0ed.0312262050.37ba21de@posting.google.com>,
abwatson <albertbwatson@yahoo.com> writes

David Longley <David@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:<bI9JTMDeGI7$EweF@longley.demon.co.uk>...

[snip]

Approaches are tried, rejected, and sometimes revived. Were Rumelhart and
McClleland unaware of Minsky and Papert's "Perceptrons"? [snip]

I can't find my copy right now. But I think they must have (wrongly)
assumed that by using networks with more levels, and by using
hill-climbing -- that is, backpropagation-- the deeper networks became
much more capable than the two-layer machines discussed in
"Perceptrons". However, even multilayer learning nets share
basically the same limitations described in our book: in general, the
size of the networks (as well as the size of the coefficients) still
grows exponentially with the size of the problem. On the positive
side, the size of the exponents may be smaller with deeper networks.

So does this mean Rieke, Warland, de Ruter van Steveninck, and Bialek really
*are* engaged in a "sterile" persuit when they apply Shannon's information
theory to spiking neurons? Smile

It looks to me like they have built a bridge
between a theory of natural stimulus ensembles, the interpretation of spike
trains, and the behavior of organisms:

===start quote===
As a first attempt at quantifying the reliability of neural computation, we
can try to perform psychophysical discrimination experiments with single
cells. This approach, which began with Barlow and Levick, has given us
several examples in which the performance of individual cells approaches the
performance of the organism as a whole or the limits imposed by the physics
of the input signals. The method of stimulus reconstruction allows us to
extend these observations from discrimination to the more natural task of
estimation, and again we see a precision that approaches the physical limit.
The results of these very precise computations can be represented by very
small numbers of spikes, demonstrating clearly that the nervous system need
not rely on the law of large numbers to synthesize reliable percepts.
===end quote===

Of course my question, "were Rumelhart and McClleland unaware of Minsky and
Papert's 'Perceptrons'" was rhetorical, meant only to give an example of an
"approach" falling out of fashion only to be fruitfully revived. The actual
events are, as is well documented, more complex - I could have chosen a
better example (continental drift, say). Rumelhart and McClleland were aware
of "Perceptrons", describing it as a "pessimistic evaluation", and prompting
the reply "we scarcely recognize ourselves in this description".

So, although it is quite remote from my intended point that an information
processing point of view is far from a "sterile" one with which to
investigate neurons, or the behavior of organisms, the question remains
whether, as Wasserman wrote in "Advanced Methods in Neural Computing" (1993)
"the feed-forward network trained by backpropagation...was a key development
in the history of artificial neural networks". Certainly backpropagation led
to practical applications. I've "trained" several character recognizers,
feed-forward networks, using scaled conjugate gradient descent. These nets
are busily recognizing away in several major banks across the country. But
today I would use Support Vector Machines for the same task.

Quote:

Of course, none of this applies to networks with loops, because they
can compute recursive functions. However, there still is no generally
practical way to make such networks learn all the things that they can
potentially do. .

Perhaps someone will sharpen our ideas by working with some subclass of
feedbaack nets...

There is a short, interesting review article freely available on the web:
"Exploring complex networks", by Steven H. Strogatz:

===Start Quote===
The study of networks pervades all of science, from neurobiology to
statistical physics. The most basic issues are structural: how does one
characterize the wiring diagram of a food web or the Internet or the
metabolic network of the bacterium Escherichia coli? Are there any unifying
principles underlying their topology? From the perspective of nonlinear
dynamics, we would also like to understand how an enormous network of
interacting dynamical systems ‹ be they neurons, power stations or lasers ‹
will behave collectively, given their individual dynamics and coupling
architecture. Researchers are only now beginning to unravel the structure
and dynamics of complex networks.
===End Quote===

Rao's paper, "Bayesian Computation in Recurrent Neural Circuits", to appear
in: Neural Computation 16(1), 2004, is also freely available on the web.
"In this paper", he writes, "we describe a new model of Bayesian computation
in a recurrent neural circuit. We specify how the feedforward and recurrent
connections may be selected to perform Bayesian inference for arbitrary
hidden Markov models".

Finally, from the preface of "PULSED NEURAL NETWORKS", by Wolfgang Maass and
Christopher M. Bishop (eds.):

===start quote===
The majority of artificial neural network models are based on a
computational paradigm involving the propagation of continuous variables
from one processing unit to the next. In recent years, however, data from
neurobiological experiments have made it increasingly clear that biological
neural networks, which communicate through pulses, use the timing of these
pulses to transmit information and to perform computation. This realization
has stimulated a significant growth of research activity in the area of
pulsed neural networks ranging from neurobiological modeling and theoretical
analyses, to algorithm development and hardware implementations. Such
research is motivated both by the desire to enhance our understanding of
information processing in biological networks, as well as by the goal of
developing new information processing technologies.
===End Quote===

And from Kunkle and Merrigan's "Pulsed Neural Networks and their
Application", freely available on the web, "Artificial neural networks,being
based on the workings of biological neural networks,can be expected to draw
inspiration from advances in neurophysiology and related fields...
Recently,new discoveries and advances in neurophysiology have encouraged new
explorations in alternative information coding schemes in artificial neural
networks." Emperical sterility?

-- Michael

Eray Ozkural exa

Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2003 4:17 am

Guest

Doktor DynaSoar <targeting@OMCL.mil> wrote in message news:<inv0vvgee2f2smk0hb1c5o51b2jib692c6@4ax.com>...

Quote:

See that Eray? I just told him he and I differ in our opinions,
possibly greatly, and I didn't have to call him an anti-anything.

Yes, I can.

Thanks,

--
Eray

Eray Ozkural exa

Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2003 4:46 am

Guest

Doktor DynaSoar <targeting@OMCL.mil> wrote in message news:<7mu0vvk4pnok74a83sppdcpnmv9hvbdcfl@4ax.com>...

Quote:

The argument stands regardless of the delivery. So does the
comparative credentials test. References?

If they were in the other message you mention, please repost them as I
didn't receive them. Or provide the message ID and I'll retrieve it.

I'm a phd student. For the moment you can assume that my credentials
consist of my usenet and internet presence.

Quote:

} Please read my other post in which I retract my statement that you
} ought to be a behaviorist. I was mistaken in labelling you a
} behaviorist only because of the way you speak.

Ought? You didn't say ought. You repeatedly said I was, and no
uncertain terms.

Just that fact, that you assumed I was despite complete lack of
evidence except that which you imagined, speaks volumes regarding your
proclivity for "Ready, Fire, Aim".

I was too quick to act. I apologize to you personally for calling you
a behaviorist.

Quote:

Look, we'll forego the references if you'll simply seriously consider
one fact: Although you may be in some ways quite correct in your
position, you do it, yourself, and anyone else who attempts to support
that position, no favors, and in fact ruin the credibility which that
positon comes to connote, when you shoot at it like a box of shotgun
shells dropped in the campfire.

That's correct.

Quote:

Time was I'd waltz in, find a kook, stir them up, and drag them off to
alt.usenet.kooks where they'd be tormeted endlessly. I'm not about
that anymore. Now I'm about getting them to stop acting like they
deserve that. Just as there's been way too much of empty rhetoric vs.
empty anti-rhetoric, there's been way too much endless torment. Twelve
years is more than enough of this stuff, and it's more than enough
time to grow out of it.

I agree that is very counter-productive. It is by no means an exchange
useful for either party.

I wonder one thing, though. Were the anti-rhetoric types you observed
on sci.cognitive and sci.philosophy.meta?

Regards,

--
Eray Ozkural

David Longley

Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2003 7:20 am

Guest

In article <3ff0c68b.48374395@netnews.att.net>, Lester Zick
<lesterDELzick@worldnet.att.net> writes

Quote:

On Mon, 29 Dec 2003 22:09:34 +0000, David Longley
David@longley.demon.co.uk> in comp.ai.philosophy wrote:

In message <3ff09a01.42954130@netnews.att.net>, Lester Zick
lesterDELzick@worldnet.att.net> writes
On Mon, 29 Dec 2003 18:46:10 +0000, David Longley
David@longley.demon.co.uk> in comp.ai.philosophy wrote:

See, David, the problem here is that you aren't qualified to think in
terms of ideas because you only deal in the ideas of other people.
When are you going to get some ideas of your own with which to
critique the ideas of others? But I digress. By all means get on with
the service. The father, son, and holy ghost no doubt. Let's worship
the behaviorist world without end. Amen.

I use other people's *words*, as do you (except that you're so arrogant
that you don't realise this).

Sure I recognize this. It's just that I also use original thoughts of
my own. You don't and don't seem to appreciate the distinction.

I don't think you know enough about yourself or others to know whether
you have said something original or not. That's *my* point. If you
actually read some of the material I've suggested you might find that
what you have to say is less original than you like to think. You might
also learn that originality is not all that it's made out to be.

On the other hand you might just consider pointing out what is not
original and exactly why.

You don't seem to have grasped that fact that most people will look at
what you are posting and just think you are an ignorant, arrogant ass
(at best) and ignore you for it. In popular language, you are a "passive
aggressive". Why should people try to educate you when you are so
abusive and disrespectful? The same really goes for some others in this
newsgroup. They clearly have no professional basis for what they say,
it's obvious - Glen and I have met and worked with people who do, and we
have met and taught many who initially don't. We read and mark essays,
examination scripts etc - in forums like this, we see people lying about
themselves usually because they are either anonymous or because they
stupidly think we and others can't see through it. It's all a matter of
experience with behaviour.

Quote:

The issue isn't whether I know enough to be
original but whether you do. And if originality is not all it's
cracked up to be then I'll be tempted to settle for what's correct.

But you just don't know Lester, and you will never know whether what I
have to say is original or worthwhile because you don't read or study
enough in the fields you like to pontificate about. That may seem harsh,
but it's true. You have made it very clear that you have read little or
nothing and yet you have very strong views about it all. Doesn't that
seem just a little bit odd? Don't you think there might be something
wrong with the way you are behaving when you are told by people who *do*
know about these things that you just have it all wrong?

However things *seem* to you (and Ozkural, Zero and Michaels etc) it
seems that way because of what you know (and don't know) ie your
reinforcement history. Glen and I are, in some ways, benignly playing
with you. I've certainly used several peoples' behaviour in this
newsgroup as real world illustrations of what I have had to say about
the problems of intensional contexts (although I'm not sure Michaels or
Zero have grasped this).

Glen and I have seen this sort of behaviour many times before, it's a
common sophomoric reaction to material which, as students they just
don't understand (that's the bane of being a student for the less
bright, but the joy of it all for the smarter ones). They less smart
think they *do* understand because they *translate* what they hear and
read in terms of their familiar natural folk psychology rather than
learn it as a new language. Because of that the average student thinks
it's alien and not up to their familiar mentalistic theory of the world
- that it's devoid of "meaning", "ideas", "originality" and "creativity"
etc. But it only *looks* shallow, primitive and meaningless to folk like
you for the same reasons that foreign cultures and languages looked
shallow, primitive and meaningless to Xenophobe's before the world
became a smaller "PC" place (for some). If you look closely at the other
behaviours of your fellow non-travellers in this newsgroup, you'll see
others fragments of behaviour which are part of the same general
reactionary disposition.

The profile is pretty clear, and as I have said elsewhere, "folk
psychology" is basically what large numbers of psychologists study. It
has its flaws and there are reasons for folk psychology being the way
that it is, but what I have been saying requires one to understand
something more than how folk psychology works - and to understand that
you really need to listen more carefully - something you won't be able
to do unless you actually read what I (or Glen) have written and unless
you tell yourself that you *don't* understand it and need to do some
further reading.

What you read in Skinner, Quine etc (and perhaps at times me too) has
far more in common with the phenomenology of Husserl, Heidegger etc than
you might appreciate. It's your failure to see *that* that really
explains why Glen and I can see that what you and others write here is
really just xenophobic and academically ignorant rubbish.

Quote:

The rest of us try to
relate what we have
to say to what others have already had to say, and for good reasons.

Frankly I prefer to wait until I have something to say before I try to
relate it to what others have already had to say. You try to relate
whatever you have to say to what others have said before you have
anything to say or even recognize whether what you say is worth
saying.

How do you know that Lester? How do you know whether you have something
to say?

I don't. That's your half of the conversation. My half is to comment
on your half. What I know is that what I have to say fits certain
criteria with respect to the interrelation of properties of all kinds.

You know no such thing. I'm telling you that you don't know. That should
be enough to stop you dead in your tracks. It doesn't. Why not?

Quote:

Lester - you need to *stop* what you are doing and do some reading and
genuine learning (not naive challenging/abusing). That advice seems
clear enough to me and it is something that I would have hoped that any
other responsible person would say to you having seen what you post. You
simply don't know what you are talking about. Arguing with me or others
on these matters seems dangerous to me - try listening and learning
instead.

Quote:

There you go again - and it just sounds silly.

Quote:

I don't have any interest in radical or evidential behaviorism until
you and behaviorism can explain behavior. It's as simple as that.

And that is just more silly nonsense - it's as simple as that. If you
don't know what behaviour is, why are you posting threads about it
rather than asking for reading material or trying honestly to learn from
what Glen and I have posted here? You're asking "essentialist" questions
which are metaphysical.

As to "explanation" - see if you can dig out Quine's "Mind and Verbal
Dispositions" I'm not sure if it's on the web, I doubt it, but there
will be comments upon it:

http://www.wpunj.edu/cohss/philosophy/faculty/mandik/courses/lang/Reading
Notes/Quine.htm

Here's something I posted some years ago.

From: David Longley (David@longley.demon.co.uk)
Subject: Re: FIRST order? was: why Ginsberg grouses
Newsgroups: comp.ai, sci.logic, comp.ai.philosophy, sci.cognitive
Date: 1995/07/04

One interesting way of understanding Quine's behaviourist
position is through a brief look at contemporary learning theory
(Classical Conditioning: It isn't What You Think It Is' -
American Psychologist - Robert Rescorla (1988). This reveals how
the most influential theory of Classical Conditioning (Rescorla
and Wagner 1971) is essentially a neural network model.
References cited elsewhere report how such models can account for
the biases observed in human as well as animal 'reasoning'.

What we have is the conditioning (learning) of 'Observation
Sentences' (words) to sensory system stimulations allowing us to
make predictions. It is here that epistemology reduces to
empirical psychology, and why what goes on in the hidden layers
of the complex weight matrices which comprise our Central Nervous
Systems are idiosyncratic, holistic and basically indeterminate.
Principles of formal reasoning (e.g. those of FOL), from this
perspective, must be a set of functions/operations learned like
any other set of skills, either vicariously, or by supervision,
and which have to date empirically withstood the test of trial
and refuation. The formal way of describing the dynamics of what
takes place is through the association strength competition model
Va=alpha.beta(lambda-Vx) and variants of this essentially linear,
model developed by others.

What follows is one of the most succinct accounts of Quine's
position that I have come across. The terms 'sense', 'intension',
'meaning' are often used interchangeably, as are 'referent' and
'extension'. Hopefully it sheds light on what I have tried to say.

A.W Moore on W.V.O Quine (1993)

'There is an attack on senses of a quite different and
very radical kind in the work of W. V. Quine. Quine
takes meaning to be ultimately a matter of observable
behaviour and dispositions to behaviour on the part of
language users. There is a point here that is more or
less common currency: a word's meaning can never be
discerned except by observing how it is actually used.
(Even an onomatopoeic word has to be used as such.) But
the point is given a distinctive twist by Quine, who
derives it from a general physicalism. The only facts
are physical facts (facts about how things are
physically). Quine believes that this is enough to
discredit talk about senses, and any implicated talk.
The connection is not obvious. It is not obvious that
the physical facts of language use cannot justify the
attribution of different senses to different
expressions. But Quine has an argument designed to show
that they cannot.

The argument runs as follows. The notion of a
physical fact is bound up with physics. Physics is at
the centre of our general picture of the world. It is
the result of our best attempts to organize and
systematize what we know about the world through
observation. But it is not dictated to us. Observation
does not rule out alternative and equally good systems
of the world. This means that, when we turn to our
linguistic behaviour-in particular, to the way in which
we use the language of physics, in its more theoretical
reaches-there are different, equally good ways of
locating and assigning meaning. For our linguistic
behaviour is governed not only by meaning but also by
our view of things. However, given the slack just
referred to, it could just as well be described as if it
were governed, with different meaning, by one of the
rival views. Thus suppose we respond to the evidence
that we have amassed by endorsing some scientific
formula. The physical facts of the case (our
observations and our subsequent verdict) admit of rival
interpretations. It may be that we have come to the view
that nature is governed by law L, and our formula means
precisely that; or it may be that we have come to the
view that nature is governed by law L* (quite distinct
from L), and our formula means precisely that. Since
these different interpretations are not themselves part
of physics, nor, as we have seen, constrained by
physics, there is (literally) no fact of the matter
concerning which is right. Meaning is indeterminate. To
assume senses, however, is to assume determinacy.

Why does Quine think that to assume senses is to
assume determinacy? There are two (connected) reasons.
The first is that senses attach to individual
expressions. But the indeterminacy of meaning arises, on
Quine's view, because there are no facts about meaning
beyond behaviour; and behaviour reaches to language as a
whole, allowing variation precisely in the distribution
of meaning over its parts. If our formula is interpreted
in one way rather than another, then related formulae,
including formulae we reject, must be interpreted in a
complementary way.

This is not decisive, however. References attach to
individual expressions too, yet Quine does not have the
same objection to them. Why not? Because he thinks that
a particular assignment of references is one legitimate
way among others of carving up the facts of linguistic
behavior It can amount to a statement of those facts. An
assignment of senses, on the other hand, introduces
further resolution and adverts to further facts-but
without further warrant.

Quine's second reason for believing in the
connection between senses and determinacy is that senses
are purely semantic and independent of any world-view.
They fix, by themselves, what the references of
expressions would be in any possible circumstances. But
(again) the indeterminacy of meaning arises, on Quine's
view, because there are no facts about meaning beyond
behaviour; and meaning governs linguistic behaviour only
inextricably with some (empirically underdetermined)
world-view. Suppose that a system of the world has to be
supplemented, or perhaps modified, in the face of some
new experience. Then, if Quine is right, there will be
quite different ways in which our linguistic behaviour
can express the supplement, or the modification, any one
of which can count as meaning-preserving. In particular,
it is left open which new sentences are to be affirmed.
This means that it is always idle to try to reach
conclusions via questions of the form, 'What would we
say if such and such?' There are no facts of the matter.

Quine has explored these ideas through all their
various consequences. Thus, to take a well-known
example, there is a distinction that arises if each
declarative sentence has its own sense. Some true
sentences [attention is restricted to those sentences
(if such there be) which can be classified as true or
false without reference to individual utterances of
them] are then "analytic"-true just because of their
senses. (To understand an analytic truth is already to
be able to see that it is true. Its truth extends to all
possible circumstances. A putative example is 'All
vixens are females) The rest are "synthetic"-true also,
in part, because of how things are. (To understand a
synthetic truth is not yet to be able to see that it is
true. Its truth depends on the actual circumstances. A
putative example is 'All vixens are less than five feet
in length.') For reasons sketched above, there is no
behavioural way of substantiating this distinction, just
as there is no saying, determinately, whether the
rejection of a sentence previously held true represents
a change of view or a change of meaning. Quine does
allow a distinction of degree. Thus he pictures
sentences as forming a fabric, each lying more or less
close to the edge where the fabric "impinges on
experience". That is, the truth or falsity of each is
more or less sensitive to how experience reveals things
to be. But even to talk of an edge may be to concede
greater determinacy than his own arguments allow. (As an
aside: can Quine perhaps admit a distinction at the
level not of sentences but of utterances? We frequently
introduce definitions into our conversations as a way of
imposing clarity and aiding discussion. There seems to
be no harm in Quine's allowing that in a limited context
of that kind the utterances of certain sentences will
bear the mark of analyticity.)

Midway through Mind and Verbal Dispositions [1975],
in the course of outlining these ideas, Quine turns his
attention to translation. This offers a new and perhaps
sharper focus. Any indeterminacy of meaning must issue
in a corresponding indeterminacy of translation. For if
meaning is indeterminate, there can be different,
equally good ways of compiling a bilingual dictionary-at
the limit, "different" to the point of being
incompatible, and "equally good" to the point of being
each perfect. Conversely, given senses, any perfect
bilingual dictionary must respect them, and any
incompatibility between two dictionaries will show that
at least one contains an error. If both dictionaries
satisfy all the physical constraints that can be imposed
on their adequacy, still there is a fact of the matter
concerning which, if either, is right. But note: this is
an issue about how we should assess a situation in which
there are two competing dictionaries of this kind. It is
not an issue about how likely such a situation is to
arise. There are no new questions of (empirical)
substance here.

There is, however, the following new consideration.
If, with Quine, we think that there can be two perfect
but incompatible dictionaries, then we owe an account of
what we mean by 'incompatible' here. For obviously we
cannot mean 'differing at some point as to sense'. On
the other hand, other differences of meaning are not, by
his own lights. differences in fact. It looks as if the
Quinean position is self-stultifying. (This is a charge
that has often been levelled against him. There is
similar cause for concern in the idea of alternative and
equally good systems of the world. In what way
"alternative"?)

Quine has a ready reply: incompatibility (like
alternativeness) is a matter of details seen out of
context. Two dictionaries are incompatible if they
contain elements that could not consistently be combined
into a single dictionary (or, more cautiously, if there
is a particular translation which is correct according
to one dictionary and incorrect according to the other).
For example, it may be that there is, in one of the two
languages involved, a scientific formula which is
equivocal in the way considered earlier and which one of
the dictionaries renders one way the other the other.
Each dictionary, taken separately, can still fit the
relevant patterns of overall behaviour perfectly. This
will show up most clearly if the "target' language-the
language into which a translation is to be made-allows
for finer and subtler discriminations than the other,
and affords correspondingly wider scope for reproducing
those patterns. (But the discrepancy had better not be
too great, lest the fit be imperfect.)

The upshot is a powerful attack on senses. There can
be no legitimate statements of meaning that are not
couched ultimately, albeit indeterminately, in terms of
the simple word/world relationship.'

A. W. Moore (1993)
Introduction
MEANING AND REFERENCE
Oxford University Press
--
David Longley

oOo

Quote:

What is the point of this? Do you want to learn or do you want to tell
us what's wrong with behaviourism etc even though you tell us you don't
understand it? Look at your behaviour - think about what you are doing
and show some restraint.

Quote:

This just shows that you should be more critical of what pops into your
mind Lester.

--
David Longley

Glen M. Sizemore

Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2003 7:49 am

Guest

Dr. D: Thanks, Glen.

Actually, I have to agree in principle, in as much as both are
conducted in an empirical manner. Plus, behaviorism serves as a major
source of hypotheses for testing.

GS: Hi again. Not sure what you mean by the second sentence above. I would
say that, without "psychological facts," there is nothing to explain in
terms of physiology. This, of course, includes the facts of all areas of
psychology (the real facts, I mean - that is, those that are couched in
terms of what is actually manipulated and what is actually measured), but in
most areas other than behavior analysis, the facts are far from clear owing
to the misuse of null-hypothesis statistical tests*.

Dr. D: I suppose my personal outlook on the subject comes from a quote by
Skinner, that my mentor Karl Pribram chose as sort of a motto for the
Third Appalachian Conference on Behavioral Neurodynamics: "Behaviorism
by itself cannot account for everything. For that we require the brain
sciences."

GS: I think I remember something else he said that he took from Skinner - to
paraphrase: With respect to behavior, there are two temporal gaps that must
be filled by physiology: 1.) the temporal gap between exposure to
"conditioning" and later behavior and, 2.) the gap between the presentation
of a stimulus and the occurrence of behavior. That is the holy grail of
behavioral neurophysiology.

Didn't he say something like that?

Cordially,

Glen

*It is, for example, possible to get a statistically significant "effect"
where less than half of the subjects actually show an effect (where the
latter is judged by looking at each subject's data in circumstances in which
this can be done - i.e., in circumstances where there are repeated measures
of the same subject).

"Doktor DynaSoar" <targeting@OMCL.mil> wrote in message
news:0ilvuv47m81ao3r0sna1nhbhnqnnk4jh7p@4ax.com...

Quote:

On Sun, 28 Dec 2003 13:25:22 GMT, "Glen M. Sizemore"
gmsizemore2@yahoo.com> wrote:

Lester Zick

Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2003 12:19 pm

Guest

On Tue, 30 Dec 2003 12:20:37 +0000, David Longley
<David@longley.demon.co.uk> in comp.ai.philosophy wrote:

Quote:

In article <3ff0c68b.48374395@netnews.att.net>, Lester Zick
lesterDELzick@worldnet.att.net> writes
On Mon, 29 Dec 2003 22:09:34 +0000, David Longley
David@longley.demon.co.uk> in comp.ai.philosophy wrote:

In message <3ff09a01.42954130@netnews.att.net>, Lester Zick
lesterDELzick@worldnet.att.net> writes
On Mon, 29 Dec 2003 18:46:10 +0000, David Longley
David@longley.demon.co.uk> in comp.ai.philosophy wrote:

See, David, the problem here is that you aren't qualified to think in
terms of ideas because you only deal in the ideas of other people.
When are you going to get some ideas of your own with which to
critique the ideas of others? But I digress. By all means get on with
the service. The father, son, and holy ghost no doubt. Let's worship
the behaviorist world without end. Amen.

I use other people's *words*, as do you (except that you're so arrogant
that you don't realise this).

Sure I recognize this. It's just that I also use original thoughts of
my own. You don't and don't seem to appreciate the distinction.

I don't think you know enough about yourself or others to know whether
you have said something original or not. That's *my* point. If you
actually read some of the material I've suggested you might find that
what you have to say is less original than you like to think. You might
also learn that originality is not all that it's made out to be.

On the other hand you might just consider pointing out what is not
original and exactly why.

You don't seem to have grasped that fact that most people will look at
what you are posting and just think you are an ignorant, arrogant ass
(at best) and ignore you for it.

Strange but I get just the opposite impression. I suspect you are
mirrorizing.

Quote:

In popular language, you are a "passive
aggressive".

See here you're making another telepathic-psychopathic diagnosis that
reflects more on your professional qualifications as a shrink than it
does on anything I have said.

Quote:

Why should people try to educate you when you are so
abusive and disrespectful?

I don't know. Why do you? Strikes me as a manic compulsive behavioral
disorder in the vernacular.

Quote:

The same really goes for some others in this
newsgroup. They clearly have no professional basis for what they say,
it's obvious - Glen and I have met and worked with people who do, and we
have met and taught many who initially don't. We read and mark essays,
examination scripts etc - in forums like this, we see people lying about
themselves usually because they are either anonymous or because they
stupidly think we and others can't see through it. It's all a matter of
experience with behaviour.

The issue isn't whether I know enough to be
original but whether you do. And if originality is not all it's
cracked up to be then I'll be tempted to settle for what's correct.

But you just don't know Lester, and you will never know whether what I
have to say is original or worthwhile because you don't read or study
enough in the fields you like to pontificate about.

The problem is not whether I know what you say is correct. The problem
is that you don't say anything. You only cite scripture and diagnose
personalities according to some rather bizarre personal vision of your
own importance. This is the reason you can't carry on conversations.
Your comments are not directed at what people say but at the people
themselves in totally frivolous terms irrelevant to the issues they
raise.

Quote:

That may seem harsh,
but it's true. You have made it very clear that you have read little or
nothing and yet you have very strong views about it all. Doesn't that
seem just a little bit odd? Don't you think there might be something
wrong with the way you are behaving when you are told by people who *do*
know about these things that you just have it all wrong?

The presumption here is that you're one of the people who knows about
these things and the only relevant standard for such a claim is
whether you can explain the nature of behavior. If not you have no
basis for what you say regardless of academic scholarship. I think
this is called transference in the vernacular and you do a lot of it.

Quote:

However things *seem* to you (and Ozkural, Zero and Michaels etc) it
seems that way because of what you know (and don't know) ie your
reinforcement history. Glen and I are, in some ways, benignly playing
with you. I've certainly used several peoples' behaviour in this
newsgroup as real world illustrations of what I have had to say about
the problems of intensional contexts (although I'm not sure Michaels or
Zero have grasped this).

Making sport of us old sport? Well I do the same with behaviorists but
much more effectively it seems.

Quote:

Glen and I have seen this sort of behaviour many times before, it's a
common sophomoric reaction to material which, as students they just
don't understand (that's the bane of being a student for the less
bright, but the joy of it all for the smarter ones). They less smart
think they *do* understand because they *translate* what they hear and
read in terms of their familiar natural folk psychology rather than
learn it as a new language. Because of that the average student thinks
it's alien and not up to their familiar mentalistic theory of the world
- that it's devoid of "meaning", "ideas", "originality" and "creativity"
etc. But it only *looks* shallow, primitive and meaningless to folk like
you for the same reasons that foreign cultures and languages looked
shallow, primitive and meaningless to Xenophobe's before the world
became a smaller "PC" place (for some). If you look closely at the other
behaviours of your fellow non-travellers in this newsgroup, you'll see
others fragments of behaviour which are part of the same general
reactionary disposition.

The only behavior I'm interested in is whether my emitted verbal
behavior is correct or not. And unfortunately you don't emit any
significant behavioral contingency relevant to that understanding.

Quote:

The profile is pretty clear, and as I have said elsewhere, "folk
psychology" is basically what large numbers of psychologists study. It
has its flaws and there are reasons for folk psychology being the way
that it is, but what I have been saying requires one to understand
something more than how folk psychology works - and to understand that
you really need to listen more carefully - something you won't be able
to do unless you actually read what I (or Glen) have written and unless
you tell yourself that you *don't* understand it and need to do some
further reading.

By your standard behavior itself is a folk psychology term given
currency by behaviorists without the benefit of explanation.

Quote:

What you read in Skinner, Quine etc (and perhaps at times me too) has
far more in common with the phenomenology of Husserl, Heidegger etc than
you might appreciate. It's your failure to see *that* that really
explains why Glen and I can see that what you and others write here is
really just xenophobic and academically ignorant rubbish.

I'm so glad you can explain my behavior. Now if you would just explain
behavior we might just get down to the nuts and bolts of what you are
explaining about me in other than folk psychology descriptive terms.

Quote:

Because you don't explain why I don't know by reference to what I say.
Can you really be as stupid as what your verbal behavior indicates
here? Do you imagine that your emitted denial has any relevance?
Pardon me I have to laugh. This is comical. Do you imagine that I
couldn't be stopped dead in my tracks if you can explain behavior in
other than differential terms? Yet I persist. Unfazed by contempt and
contumely I brazen the storm of derision. You figure it out.

Quote:

And if you have something to say with respect to those criteria or
whether what I say fits those criteria then we have the basis of a
conversation. But if you're just going to whine and snivel that my
ideas don't fit your behaviorist perspective on behavior then we
don't. Your choice.

Lester - you need to *stop* what you are doing and do some reading and
genuine learning (not naive challenging/abusing). That advice seems
clear enough to me and it is something that I would have hoped that any
other responsible person would say to you having seen what you post. You
simply don't know what you are talking about. Arguing with me or others
on these matters seems dangerous to me - try listening and learning
instead.

Yes, er, well the advice seems clear enough because it's the same
advice you've been giving over and over. The question is whether I
know what I'm talking about and the answer to that is a matter of
explanation and not simply a matter of denial to be cured by advice.

Quote:

I thought it sounded rather funny. What, David, not so amusing when
behaviorists are the butt of jokes?

Quote:

I don't have any interest in radical or evidential behaviorism until
you and behaviorism can explain behavior. It's as simple as that.

And that is just more silly nonsense - it's as simple as that. If you
don't know what behaviour is, why are you posting threads about it
rather than asking for reading material or trying honestly to learn from
what Glen and I have posted here? You're asking "essentialist" questions
which are metaphysical.

That's nice. Let me know when you have something to say relevant to
what I have to say. I didn't say I don't know what behavior is. I said
you and behaviorism don't know what behavior is.

Quote:

[snip the sermon for today of St. a-Quine-as . . .]

Regards - Lester

dan michaels

Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2003 3:11 pm

Guest

minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) wrote in message news:<f04e2625.0312291019.1d640eec@posting.google.com>...

Quote:

Michael Olea <oleaj@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message news:<BC147EAD.3788%oleaj@sbcglobal.net>...

Quote:

Approaches are tried, rejected, and sometimes revived. Were Rumelhart and
McClleland unaware of Minsky and Papert's "Perceptrons"? [snip]

I can't find my copy right now. But I think they must have (wrongly)
assumed that by using networks with more levels, and by using
hill-climbing -- that is, backpropagation-- the deeper networks became
much more capable than the two-layer machines discussed in
"Perceptrons". However, even multilayer learning nets share
basically the same limitations described in our book: in general, the
size of the networks (as well as the size of the coefficients) still
grows exponentially with the size of the problem. On the positive
side, the size of the exponents may be smaller with deeper networks.

Being a fan of both Minsky and the PDP group, and having trained many
many 100s of MLFF BP nets myself, I can agree that what Marvin says is
correct, regards the "limitations" he specifically cites here, but it
is also true that the MLFF networks *can* in fact solve many problems
that the original perceptrons cannot ... and I think this is the key
issue that the PDP guys were addressing in their 1988 [89??] books.
This is fairly clear when you look at things from a [graphical]
hyperplane perspective.

Both type of nets may ultimately have similar limitations, as cited,
but at the same time, the range of problems solvable by the MLFF nets
is much, much, and much wider. XOR is the first example. There are
many others.

Quote:

Acme Diagnostics

Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2003 11:30 pm

Guest

Doktor DynaSoar <targeting@OMCL.mil> wrote in message
news:<c311vvo8d82i597m28aurdon0ln85nbp9e@4ax.com> the following:

Quote:

On 29 Dec 2003 12:39:07 -0600, "Acme Diagnostics"
LFinezapthis@partpostmark.net> wrote:

Quote:

Careful there, if I find there's an ivory tower growing under me I'll
have to kick it out. In fact I think I've been doing a fair job at
that here. Just like Zaphod Beeblebrax, I'm just some guy, you know?

Well said. Didn't mean to pour it on, but I thought the credential
particularly applicable. Don't know Mr. Beeblebrax, but commend his/her
parents for choosing a gender neutral name. I'm just a poor broken-down
programmer with holes in my sneakers.

Quote:

(Though I must admit, I'm deeply enamored of the characterization done
of me in "Attack of the 50 Foot Grubor").

I'm a sucker for war stories, especially those with aerial combat.
Woody Allen would be impressed. Obviously the author holds you in high
esteem, about 50' or 50 lbs/in^2 worth <g>

Quote:

} I wonder if you are aware of the following google counts that have
} been published in c.a.p. numerous times? Similar posts by others
}
} The c.a.p. group could benefit greatly from a little of your
attention.

<snip>

Quote:

Excllent statistical summary <snipped but saved>. It does indeed
explain much. I hadn't seen that.

Thanks. You sounded like a fact person.

Quote:

Since the articles contain rather long, and non-repeated (no matter
how repetetive) text, it's not going to register on the Briedbart
Index, and therefore not count as spam. Sure, he appends his URL, and
it has a commercial intent, but that doesn't fit the definition. The
definitons are in "FAQ: Current Usenet Spam Thresholds" published
regularly on news.admin.net-abuse.usenet (and other groups) by Tim
Skirvin.

Thanks for the proper definition of Usenet spam. I've used the word
very loosely, in the sense used by my email filter customers. But it's
great that you noticed the uniqueness of each post, thus can estimate
the time it took to do 8,000+ repetitions at no pay. That also seems
contrary to the spam definition and to move into DSM-IV definitions.
But certified kook would be close enough. <g>

Quote:

These same guys? Eight years? I've found parts of the argument going
back to early 1992, but to think these guys are 2/3 of that..... and
this is still ALL they're doing.....

That's sad.

I'm guessing you mean the behaviorism v. cog sci v. neuroscience v.
mind issue. Isn't that legitimate argument, regardless of your own
position? (I am unqualified.) Longley's theory aka dogma concerns how
that and any other argument or discussion is conducted, and is mostly
an interpretation of the philosopher Quine's work on language. Note
that Longley has no philosophy credentials.

At this point, most would ask, what is the explication of that
interpretation? But there never is an explication - only bandwidth - of
constantly repeated ritual words (e.g. the "google counts") and posted
philosophy excerpts, usually the same Quine excerpts, some too horrible
to describe.

Longley's response to this? (paraphrase) "If I explain, that would be
folk psychological and intensional, contrary to the extensional stance"
(the title of his site). This isn't the only unfalsifiability device.
There are several, sometimes in layers. Piece of cake. <g>

Quote:

Tell you what, I'll download c.a.p and look it over.

Thanks for your valuable time. If a kook certification is possible, I
can't see how it could be done with posting samples. I think Longley is
too smooth for that. I believe it would have to be done by the
recommendation of persons such as yourself. xanthian (Kent Paul Dolan)
is another net legend who already knows about Longley. I'm fairly
certain he would join in such a recommendation.

I would like to explain my content that you are likely to run across. I
finished with achievable goals in c.a.p. months ago (a main
disappointment being that which was not achievable due to the nature of
the group). The only reason for posting the last month was a burning
curiosity about what motivated Longley. I did that in a most public
way, and used it as a demonstration of my AI model which is a reasoner
based on real-world logic/probability. Thus it began with speculation,
moved towards weight of evidence, demonstrated coincidental
probability, standards of observer, and various standards of proof and
judicial philosophy thereof, since an objective reasoner would also
solve some problems in that area (as well as nuclear terrorism, news
product labels, and 20 other things). If you don't realize this
dimension of my posts, then they will seem more hairbrained than they
otherwise would be, which is probably more than they seem to me. <g>
Besides that, I'm a comedian, and I extracted my housekeeping fee in
the form of having fun at Longley's expense. (I don't need an audience
because I laugh at my own jokes.) Now believing him not to be
responsible for his actions, probably not something to brag about. But
there you have it.

Quote:

I'll be up front
and tell you that I have a real big personal problem with the "p" part
of that, as well as whether the combination of the three terms even
makes sense. In other words, I won't be very constructive.

I and several other posters past and present would agree, and call that
a most constructive approach. There's philosophy, and then there's
philosophy. I practice the 2nd kind. <g> There is surprisingly little
of the 1st kind in c.a.p. considering the group title. Well, there's
quite a bit of the 3rd kind (in all senses of the phrase), meaning
Longleyjism.

You don't need to get into the "p" part. I believe it is a mistake, a
trap, devolving into endless confusion and argument. Longley can easily
be refuted without entering his dogma. Do you need to address
Quine or any philosophy to show that your language is reliable?
(Longley will jump in here and say he never said that, with his dogma
about "said that," indirect quotation, etc. - another unfalsifiabiity
device.)

Do you need to discuss statistics theory to demonstrate that human
behavior quantified into simplistic regression formulas, then failing
to verify predictions in scientifically valid real-time tests, is not
science?

Do you need to enter the particulars of neuroscience to demonstrate
that someone is only pretending to know the subject? Programming?
Engineering? Math? Longley is Professor Emurdurous of all,
credentials not required.

Quote:

Face it, I
stick wires in things.

A man after my own heart! My favorite argument chopper to separate
science/logic/technology from kookdom is "Things that apparently work."
(And never forget "apparently" if you value your time.)

Quote:

If I can't, it's not there. But I'll see if
maybe I can run some sheep dog circles. No promises other than if I do
act, I'll have fun, so you might as well enjoy it too.

Well I believe his sickness is quite contagious, so what used to be fun
is sort of disagreeable now. But I would very much like to see
c.a.p. reach its potential, and I don't think that's possible under
present conditions. I'm in no hurry. I sort of have to just hang around
for about 15 years anyway waiting for a few more orders of magnitude in
processor speed to teach my computer to make me laugh too.

Sorry to bend your ear. But considering your height I figured you might
not notice too much. <g>

Larry

Wolf Kirchmeir

Posted: Wed Dec 31, 2003 4:02 am

Guest

On 30 Dec 2003 22:30:17 -0600, Acme Diagnostics wrote:

Quote:

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - buy it, watch it - betcha can't watch it
just once. :-)

And it's BeeblebrOx - which in real English sounds quite different from
BeeblebrAx. :-)

HNY

--
Wolf Kirchmeir, Blind River ON Canada
"Nature does not deal in rewards or punishments, but only in consequences."
(Robert Ingersoll)

Glen M. Sizemore

Posted: Wed Dec 31, 2003 9:38 am

Guest

"Nature does not deal in rewards or punishments, but only in consequences."

GS: What does this mean?

"Wolf Kirchmeir" <wwolfkir@sympatico.can> wrote in message
news:jbysxveflzcngvpbpna.hqrj030.pminews@news1.sympatico.ca...

Quote:

On 30 Dec 2003 22:30:17 -0600, Acme Diagnostics wrote:

Well said. Didn't mean to pour it on, but I thought the credential
particularly applicable. Don't know Mr. Beeblebrax, but commend his/her
parents for choosing a gender neutral name. I'm just a poor broken-down
programmer with holes in my sneakers.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - buy it, watch it - betcha can't watch
it
just once. :-)

And it's BeeblebrOx - which in real English sounds quite different from
BeeblebrAx. :-)

HNY

--
Wolf Kirchmeir, Blind River ON Canada
"Nature does not deal in rewards or punishments, but only in
consequences."
(Robert Ingersoll)

Wolf Kirchmeir

Posted: Thu Jan 01, 2004 11:03 am

Guest

On Wed, 31 Dec 2003 14:38:23 GMT, Glen M. Sizemore wrote:

Quote:

"Nature does not deal in rewards or punishments, but only in consequences."

GS: What does this mean?

It means that nature has no moral sense.

--
Wolf Kirchmeir, Blind River ON Canada
"Nature does not deal in rewards or punishments, but only in consequences."
(Robert Ingersoll)

Wolf Kirchmeir

Posted: Thu Jan 01, 2004 2:29 pm

Guest

On Thu, 01 Jan 2004 23:32:33 +0100, Bouh wrote:

Quote:

On Thu, 01 Jan 2004 16:03:42 -0500 (EST), "Wolf Kirchmeir"
wwolfkir@sympatico.can> wrote:

On Wed, 31 Dec 2003 14:38:23 GMT, Glen M. Sizemore wrote:

"Nature does not deal in rewards or punishments, but only in consequences."

GS: What does this mean?

It means that nature has no moral sense.

nor signification

Pat

When Ingersoll made that remark, he was commenting on the belief that natural
disasters were punishments for moral torpedoed, inflicted by a god that was
attempting behaviour modification on humans. He used "nature" in contrast to
"god", and contrasted reward/punishment with simple consequences (of
stupidity, etc.) His point was, in modern and somewhat misleading lingo, that
if you do dumb things, you can expect nasty consequences, even if you live a
moral, god-approved life.

There's a lot more to be said, but fuller understanding would require a short
course in American literature and culture/society around the time of the
Revolution.

--
Wolf Kirchmeir, Blind River ON Canada
"Nature does not deal in rewards or punishments, but only in consequences."
(Robert Ingersoll)

Bouh

Posted: Thu Jan 01, 2004 5:32 pm

Guest

On Thu, 01 Jan 2004 16:03:42 -0500 (EST), "Wolf Kirchmeir"
<wwolfkir@sympatico.can> wrote:

Quote:

On Wed, 31 Dec 2003 14:38:23 GMT, Glen M. Sizemore wrote:

"Nature does not deal in rewards or punishments, but only in consequences."

GS: What does this mean?

It means that nature has no moral sense.

nor signification

Pat

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