Defining the nature of rational discussion!

[Doctordick]

If you look at my profile, you will find a comment about a search for intelligent life. That is a very central defining aspect of my life. I have a Ph.D. in physics. I went into physics because I wanted to understand the universe and not because I wanted to "do physics". By the way, "the universe" is, by definition, everything – think about that for a while. At any rate, physicists seemed to have a better handle on the problem than anybody else or at least they offered to defend their explanations. However, when I got into graduate school, their interest in justifying their beliefs seemed to fall considerably short of my hopes.

In essence, there are two very different ways of "understanding the universe". There is that emotional feeling that something makes sense; that you understand what is going on and have no doubts as to the validity of your expectations. Then again there is a very different kind of understanding which allows you to logically defend some set of analytical expectations in intimate detail; even in cases where no emotional feeling exists to defend the validity of those expectations (here I am talking about all those totally counter intuitive deductions so common in analytical work).

In my head, both meanings are very important. When someone says that they "think" something is true, they can have either of the two meanings in mind and they seldom make it clear as to which phenomena they mean to convey. I believe that it is very important that these two different phenomena should be carefully identified and kept in mind whenever rational discussion is attempted. I propose that the following analysis should be examined carefully. If anyone here finds fault with my arguments, please make your complaints clear.

I will use the adjective "logical" to classify a specific kind of thought commonly believed, particularly by intellectuals, to be the only possible variety of rational thought (I suspect they believe rational and logical are merely different words for the same phenomena). In my head, the term "rational thought" implies the idea being expressed makes sense: i.e., it does not generate emotional doubts as to its validity. Under that view, the adjective rational does not always imply "logical". The view also makes it apparent that "rational statements" (though they seem to make sense) are not necessarily valid, a point anyone familiar with the development of science should be aware. That is, very bright people have made errors in their beliefs from time to time; but that does not mean that those beliefs were irrational.

If one holds that only logical thoughts are rational, then scientific progress becomes impossible since any deductions must be based on things presumed to be valid without reason (those axioms one starts with) and that is certainly irrational. However, I hold that there is a second kind of rational thought which needs to be clearly understood. Call it intuition, Zen or whatever you prefer; I will give it my own name as, though it is what is commonly referred to as intuition or Zen, I don't want to include some of the common connotations of those terms.

I will use the adjective "squirrel" (my own creation) to classify thought which is not "logical". (I do this because I think the word has some valuable applicable connotations.) If one has ever watched squirrels in the tree tops, they will see those squirrels making life and death decisions without pause; and usually the correct decisions. Have you ever seen a squirrel run full tilt down a thin branch (the branch bending under his weight) jumping out into empty air to catch a thin branch on another tree ten or twelve feet away? Very rarely do they miss their mark (actually I have never seen an error, but my wife says she has). How do they do this? Most people would agree that they manage this feat by intuition but few would call it Zen.

Squirrels are great in the treetops but they lack a bit of skill on the streets. All my life I have heard those smears you see on the street (and I think you know what I mean) humorously referred to as "poor squirrel decisions". Well, they were actually results of real decisions and I think "squirrel" is an excellent adjective to use. I doubt anyone would classify those decisions, whether they are in the tree tops or in the streets, as "logical".

So all thought is divided into two categories, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. The great strength of logical thought is that the conclusions reached through logical thought are guaranteed to be as valid as the premises upon which they are based. The weakness of logical thought is that it is limited to a very small number of premises: i.e., the specific number of factors which can be included in the analytical statement of the problem. This is a seriously small number when compared to the volumes of information available to us through our senses.

A further problem with logical thought is that the number of specific steps in the process cannot be excessive as we must be consciously aware of each step. If we are to be truly logical, each and every step must be consciously validated. Anyone who has carefully thought anything out is very well aware of the fact that considerable time is consumed in such an analysis. If a logical process were to involve a million steps, I doubt many here would attempt to follow that logic. Now mathematics and formal logic provide us with a certain respite from that last constraint but, even so, logical thought is of very limited applicability.

Squirrel thought has its own strengths and weaknesses. Its strength lies in the astonishing number of factors which may be taken into account. Its weakness is the fact that the process can not be validated: i.e., there is no way to prove a squirrel decision is correct. Nevertheless, most of them will be good decisions. Why is that? The answer should be clear. Whatever the mechanisms are, by which those decisions are reached, they have been honed and polished through millions of years of survival; failure to make good "squirrel" decisions has been cleaned from the gene pool by the consequences of the bad decisions.

Watch a basketball player dribble down the floor, dodging his opponents, sometimes dribbling behind his back, as he jumps suddenly sideways and snicks the ball through the net thirty feet away! Any athlete knows that very little logical thought goes into such a move. In fact, if you try to consciously think about what you are doing, you won't be able to do it. I think it was Buddha who once said all evil comes from conscious thought.

What I am getting at is the fact that logical thought is actually a rather worthless endeavor when it comes to life and death decisions. It is often much better to "go with your gut"; let it be a squirrel decision. In fact, in the absence of mathematics, logical decisions are so limited as to be almost entirely inapplicable to any day to day activities. This is why many students can not understand a purpose to learning mathematics. Actually they are quite right, neither math nor logic serve much of a purpose to important problems. I have known very successful people who have never made a logical decision in their entire life.

However, when a problem can be approached with math and logic, one can be quite sure of the absolute validity of their conclusions. Well, "absolute" to a certain extent: it is possible that an important factor was omitted or that some axiom thought to be true is, in fact, false. Thus it is important that we understand how those factors came to be established. There is but one answer; squirrel decisions! I come to the fundamental conclusion that squirrel decisions are the single most important part of thinking; logical thought is not even possible in the absence of squirrel thought.

This is, in fact, the single biggest problem in trying to understand the universe. Most everyone believes the ideas they have arrived at via their personal squirrel decisions are the only possible conclusions which can be reached. The reader should understand that "belief" of anything is a squirrel decision. The ability to communicate (language itself) was acquired through squirrel thought. Accept your squirrel decisions as your best bet when it comes to any serious question, but don't ever think that those squirrel decisions are infallible. You don't have to believe they are infallible before you can follow them; when it comes to life, "you pays your money and you takes your chances".

On the other hand, if you want to do science, you should remember that even your most cherished squirrel decisions could be wrong. Even you guys who are not "crackpots" should remember that. A lot of science is done in the total absence of logical thought and that has to be so; but scientists should not forget that fact. If they do, science folds over to religion. It may work great, but that does not mean it is valid. Think about that next time you see a "poor squirrel decision".

Have fun -- Dick

Knowledge is Power
and the most common abuse of that power is to use it to hide stupidity

[Qfwfq]

Is all that a definition of the nature of rational discussion?

Rational means based on reason. Even a squirrel can have it's reasons, although it couldn't afford the time to step through them during it's acrobatics.

[Doctordick]

Well, I had been hoping for an intelligent response to this thread. It has been over a month since I posted and only seventy nine people have even read it so I guess I shouldn't be surprised. The fact that so few people have even taken the trouble to look appears to imply that "Defining the nature of rational discussion" isn't an issue held in high regard here. That is too bad as it is actually the veritable key to understanding the universe. So I will respond to the only reply on the thread in the fond hope that further responses might occur.

Originally Posted by Qfwfq

Is all that a definition of the nature of rational discussion?

"All"? If it were "all", it would have to be a lot longer. I presumed you already understood much of the concept before I started. My interest was in clarifying a very important issue central to all analysis.

Originally Posted by Qfwfq

Rational means based on reason. Even a squirrel can have it's reasons, although it couldn't afford the time to step through them during it's acrobatics.

"Couldn't afford the time to step through them"? Am I to interpret that to mean you believe squirrels have the intellectual capacity to step through the logical analysis of the problem that confronts them and it is only their busy work day which prevents them from doing so? I don't think you intended to imply such a thing. What I think is that you have failed to comprehend the central issue I tried to present.

The issue I tried to communicate is the difference between beliefs and deductions. Deductions require logic and verification of the steps required can be accomplished. That there are verifiable steps which will lead inevitably to beliefs is itself a belief. And as Qfwfq says, the squirrel couldn't afford the time to step through them (even if he were intellectually capable); well we can't afford the time to step through them either (no matter how intellectually capable one might believe they are).

What I was trying to point out is that, anytime we lose sight of the verifiable issue, we are blinding ourselves to the possibility of error. That act is irrational in the extreme and is the major error made in almost all philosophical discussions (an opinion only). All I am really asking is careful recognition of that very real difference: the difference between what we know and what we think we know.

Originally Posted by Qfwfq

I will leave your other points for discussion in your other thread.

Apparently Qfwfq had little to say about these other points which, for some reason beyond my understanding, he felt were "off topic" on the interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. Since he is the authority on this forum, I will try to make those points a little clearer.

Originally Posted by Qfwfq

If we decide not to explain it, what do we discuss? I've thought of these things often, for more than just a moment, without you telling me to.

I never said I had no interest in explaining things. What I was trying to communicate is the idea that this is a fact which should be kept in mind when one goes about constructing an explanation.

If anyone is interested in a serious discussion of how what we know and what we assume bears on explaining the universe, let me know.

Have fun -- Dick

Knowledge is Power
and the most common abuse of that power is to use it to hide stupidity

[Buffy]

Originally Posted by Doctordick

Well, I had been hoping for an intelligent response to this thread. It has been over a month since I posted and only seventy nine people have even read it so I guess I shouldn't be surprised. The fact that so few people have even taken the trouble to look appears to imply that "Defining the nature of rational discussion" isn't an issue held in high regard here.

Well, one piece of advice: even smart people have short attention spans, and the length of your initial post in combination with the lack of a summary of your thesis in the first paragraph probably lost a lot of people early on. To a great extent too, now that I've read it, it seems to be a bit on the "obvious" side, so I think a lot of people may have had few "complaints" so didn't bother to respond, or like Q, ended up with what you might have considered a somewhat flip response.

Now the only issue I was really interested in in your post is that you seem to be missing the connection between logical and "squirrel" thought: It seems your definition of logical though is restricted to the process of actually going through the steps of a proof, and instantly if you skip over these steps, you're in squirrel-land. In fact what the squirrel is doing may well have been based on a logical proof, but once proven gets built into "instantaneous reaction based on input". No you don't think about your reaction, but you "know" its right, you don't have to go through the proof again everytime it happens. Moreover, logical proofs can be reasonably approximated by inference: its not an "absolute" proof, but through practice and/or genes, that squirrel knows what muscles need contracting to hit that second limb (and as your wife says, some times they goof, but its still based on "logic"). None of this really "contradicts" any of what you've said, its just clarifying some nuances.

Also, 79 is not a bad number of hits for a thread with no followups: you get lots of hits because the thread keeps getting bumped to the top.

In general I like formalism, but a lot of people can't be bothered. If you really want to get into an argument here (or anywhere else for that matter) you've got to say something controversial, and yes, do say it in the first sentence, or better yet the title....

Cheers,
Buffy

[Mr. Potato Head]

Buffy either I am smarter than I thought or you are dumber than I thought, but you just said almost exactly what I was going to say.

Rationale is logic applied quickly. It is logic that is relative, which obviously will lead to bad decisions by squirrels. In squirrel world, judging vehicular speed has been much less necessary than limb jumping accuracy. Thump thump.

[Buffy]

Originally Posted by Mr. Potato Head

Buffy either I am smarter than I thought or you are dumber than I thought, but you just said almost exactly what I was going to say.

Rationale is logic applied quickly. It is logic that is relative, which obviously will lead to bad decisions by squirrels. In squirrel world, judging vehicular speed has been much less necessary than limb jumping accuracy. Thump thump.

Actually I don't completely agree with that. I think that in Dick's definition of rational thought you can also include the "gut feel" "I'm pretty sure that's right, but I have no evidence for it" kinds of processes that I agree with him, are in fact the source of "new" and "creative" ideas that don't necessarily start with logic (although they may be backed up by logic after the fact!)...maybe this argues that the "logic applied instantaneously" is really a third type of reasoning...

Lots of people think I'm a dumb blonde, but that's okay, it doesn't really bother me much!

Cheers,
Buffy

[Mr. Potato Head]

I think new ideas are modifications to things that already exist. I subscribe to the notion that we are all conditioned by our environment we live in and the rest is genetic/evolved. Gut feelings --> your new ideas theory are merely logic turned rationale turned common sense applied to solve a problem at hand. Our thought process has evolved with our bodies and we simply apply it in the range of our present.

When we have more time we always turn to the slow, raw logic. When we are in the middle of the street and under a tire, we use what we were born with, unless something we lived through has modified that gut feeling. Hence the concept of "knowing better." Sometimes we are torn between what we sense and what we learn. Such as my example in a different thread about turning to look who is coming into your area. We know we are not really prey anymore, but we still look even though we know we probably don't need to. In this case, our gut wins over our logic. It depends on your circumstance.

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by Doctordick

Well, I had been hoping for an intelligent response to this thread. It has been over a month since I posted and only seventy nine people have even read it so I guess I shouldn't be surprised. …

I sympathise.

Myself, I occasionally post a problem on which I’m failing to make progress to science boards like this one, in the hope that (1) the solution already exists in the literature, and someone will kindly point me to it, or (2) someone will find the problem compelling, and make better progress than I have.

Occasionally, I get interesting feedback. Always, I find I benefit from the exercise of packaging my work for an audience. To date, I’ve never had anyone pick up and run a problem to a satisfying conclusion.

My apologies for not providing you with any feedback. Your initial post reminded me of many ideas I’ve encountered in popular neuropsychological literature, in particular the 1970s work of John Lilly (Eye of the Cyclone, Mind of the Dolphin, etc.)

My personal intuition is that traditional, philosophical approaches to understanding the whole phenomena of “knowing” the nature of objective reality – which is what I take to be of the focus of you search – have consumed lifetimes of minds more capable than mine, so are not likely to be fruitful paths for me. I believe that a reductionistic approach to understanding the underlying mechanics of human and animal thought is the most productive path to understanding “how we understand”, and, ultimately, “understanding the universe”.

I’ll not pursue such research myself, but attempt to keep up with the literature, and, perhaps, find applications that the specialists actually doing the work would not.

[Doctordick]

Hi Buffy,

Sorry for the length of my posts. It is no more than an attempt to be clear. I can see so many ways my comments can be misinterpreted I try to cover all the bases. In the end, the readers usually misinterpret me anyway. I guess I am just not a decent writer. But I try!

Originally Posted by CraigD

My personal intuition is that traditional, philosophical approaches to understanding the whole phenomena of “knowing” the nature of objective reality – which is what I take to be of the focus of you search – have consumed lifetimes of minds more capable than mine, so are not likely to be fruitful paths for me.

You shouldn't sell yourself short. When I was young, my mother told me that one learns more by listening than by talking and I took her quite seriously. I listened for a long time. Now I am old and not in a position to learn much more. Maybe it is my turn to talk. I know a few things that I think are worth talking about. But I just can't find anyone who wants to listen.

In my life, I have never met anyone who's mind I would condescend to rank superior to my own. I was always told that intelligence was a measure of one's ability to solve problems: i.e., if two people know exactly the same things, the more intelligent one can do more with it. Think about that. Considering what the top people know, why is it that most of the breakthroughs are accomplished by youngsters? Now is that controversial enough for you Buffy? If you have a good answer for that one I would like to hear it. I have one; a very specific answer.

Originally Posted by Buffy

Well, one piece of advice: even smart people have short attention spans...

Yeah, I have noticed that. It's probably due to the ignorance of the people one has to deal with (notice I said "ignorance", not "intelligence"; in my opinion, the average man is far more intelligent than he is given credit for, his problem is that he doesn't know very much). If one listened to everyone, they wouldn't have any time left. I know I don't listen very much anymore myself. If you don't have a decent attention span, you might as well ignore me because what I have to say requires understanding a number of rather diverse facts ordinarily never brought to bear on one another.

Originally Posted by Buffy

To a great extent too, now that I've read it, it seems to be a bit on the "obvious" side, ...

Well, I would certainly think of it as obvious but you nonetheless may have missed the central issue I was trying to convey. You appear to have viewed the thing from the point of view of "usage" of the knowledge, not from the intended perspective of "development" of that knowledge. When looked at from the development side, the basis (or foundation) of both is rather obvious. The foundation of "squirrel" (or intuitive) knowledge is experience and the foundation of "logical" (or deduced) knowledge is presumed axioms. The fact that those axioms are arrived at via intuitive (or squirrel) processes and the fact that deduced knowledge is part and parcel of your experiences provides the connection between the two. They are inexorably bound in any concept conceived by man (or woman ). Nonetheless, they are very different processes and the differences are fundamental to answering the question, Exactly what can be deduced from first principals?

Originally Posted by Buffy

In general I like formalism, but a lot of people can't be bothered.

If you like it, perhaps I could interest you in my thoughts. For those who "can't be bothered", I really don't want to bother them. The issue I want to talk about takes a decent attention span to make sure one is performing a rational examination of that subject (particularly when most people believe the correct answer is "nothing at all". ) Anyone here who feels uninterested in the subject can drop out here; I won't feel rejected at all.

Mathematics as fundamental foundation principal

Meanwhile, for anyone who might be interested, I need to establish some fundamentals. Exactly what are the "first principals" I think should be used as the foundation of such a study? Since all logic is itself based on intuitive concepts, logic itself is a "squirrel" concept. That is, logic is constructed from concepts taken to be "self evident"; but "self evident", when examined objectively, is essentially no more than the fact that one can not conceive of them being wrong. I bring this issue up only to confront the oft raised philosophical position that logic itself is a presumptive structure and, as such, cannot be asserted to be an unquestioned requirement. (Yes, I have had that issue raised against my thoughts.) I counter their position with the assertion that "truth" by definition is the only absolute truth available to us. The issue of truth by definition rests on two very straight forward points: (1.) we either agree on our definitions or communication is impossible and (2.) only the existence of internal contradictions can invalidate a definition. Formal logic is no more than extension of the concept of definition: i.e., the definition of absolute truth. As Feynman once said, "mathematics is the distilled essence of logic". Thus it is that I take mathematics as a given foundation element but not quite as it is seen by most others. I see it as a language which has been stripped of inconsistencies through thousands of years of hard work performed by professional mathematicians. The important point being, when I give instructions in mathematics, I can be fairly confident that the listener will obtain the same results I obtained: i.e., communicantions can be much clearer than they are in English.

What is the definition of mathematics

"First Principles of Mathematics" is an extremely esoteric subject. I have not made a careful study of it but I have managed to pull out enough to convince me of an overall viewpoint which makes sense of their approach and their results (to me at least). I have come to define mathematics as the invention and study of internally consistent systems (systems being any collection of "things" together with set of rules involving those "things"). That definition is a statement of what I mean when I refer to mathematics. I only make that comment because I have rarely found it possible to achieve agreement on that definition. Everyone else seems to think that is not the definition of mathematics but no one has ever told me what they think mathematics is so I am left holding the bag. They apparently know it when they see it and presume everyone else does too. Personally I don't care for that position; I need to know what I am talking about so I can see what my presumptions are.

When it comes to first principals of mathematics, I think most everyone misses a very significant point (particularly people ignorant of mathematics). That is the fact that numbers are mere symbols and that the operations (addition, multiplication, integration, ...) are no more than a set of rules which have been shown to establish internally consistent systems.

Application of mathematics to science

Science is an attempt to explain our examinable experiences (it is our ability to examine it which makes that experience "physical" ). The issue here is that an internally inconsistent explanation is a pretty worthless thing. By definition, an internally inconsistent explanation is one which gives different answers depending on the specific path taken through the logic (that would be the supposed rules presumed by the explanation). It should be obvious to all that, in that case, it doesn't provide an answer so its original purpose is defeated. Thus it is that inconsistency is used by everyone as the primary sign of error in an explanation.

However, it is often very difficult to prove an explanation is internally consistent (particularly if the explanation is presented in a language other than mathematics). Just as an aside, you should note that, if you can prove an explanation actually is an internally consistent structure, mathematicians will accept it as a branch of mathematics! That is the central reason Newton is credited with the invention of calculus. One of the problems with modern science is that a lot of it is compartmentalized. The individual fields may be internally consistent within the field of interest but it is often very difficult to make those different fields consistent with one another. The prime example of that difficulty is the current conflict between quantum and general relativity.

The conflict between quantum and general relativity rears its ugly head in tachyons, collapse of the wave function, the Bell inequalities and the fundamental inability of the physics community to set off a correct general relativistic version of quantum mechanics. What I am trying to point out to you is the fact that there are still a lot of internally inconsistent explanations in physics (and physics is usually put forward as a model of internal consistency): i.e., it is still not possible to reduce the whole of physics to mathematics (an internally self consistent system).

The issue I am trying to get attention to is the fact that any internally self consistent explanation of anything can be seen as mathematics. It is that primary requirement that all explanations must be internally self consistent which I felt needed examination. I have done that examination and found some very interesting consequences which are apparently of little interest to anyone. None of it has ever been published as the professional physicists contend my work is philosophy and simply refuse to look at it (they assert it has no application to their field). The professional philosophers contend my work is mathematics and it should be turned over to mathematicians as it is outside their field of expertise. The mathematicians contend there is no new mathematics in my work and the only issue is one of physics which is outside their field of expertise.

So it is my position that the question, Exactly what can be deduced from first principals? is a question which can only be answered after establishing an exact definition of an explanation. (Another of those concepts they apparently know when they see it and presume everyone else does too). Again, I need to define it if I want to know what I am talking about.

I will begin by pointing out that all "explanations" require something which is to be explained. Whatever it is that is to be explained, it can be thought of as information. It thus follows that "explanation" is something which is done to (or for) information. The question then is, if we are to define "an explanation" in general, we must lay down exactly what an explanation does to (or for) information? First, I think it is pretty clear that one cannot "explain" anything they do not understand.

It seems to me that if all the information is known, then any questions about the information can be answered (in fact, that circumstance could be regarded as the definition of "knowing"). On the other hand, if the information is understood, then questions about the information can be answered given only limited or incomplete knowledge of the underlying information: i.e., limited subsets of the information. What I am saying is that understanding implies it is possible to predict expectations for information not known. The explanation itself constitutes a method which provides one with those rational expectations for unknown information consistent with what is known.

Thus I come to define "An explanation", from the abstract perspective, to be a method of obtaining expectations from given known information. If you have any arguments with that definition, it seems to me that you need to show me either a method of obtaining those expectations which can not be conceived to be an explanation or an explanation which provides no method of obtaining expectations. If you cannot show one of those circumstance, than you should agree that it is a usable definition of an explanation consistent with the common meaning of the term.

Looking to hear your complaints.

Have fun -- Dick

Knowledge is Power
and the most common abuse of that power is to use it to hide stupidity

[UncleAl]

Knowledge is Power

Power is victory. Rather than foster brilliance, we allocate for its suppression.

"Autoritätsdusel ist der größte Feind der Wahrheit," Albert Einstein, 1901